Sole Dorato: Lui Restaurarà
by Tafkae
Summary: The tale of Golden Sun from the antagonists' point of view, beginning after the first raid on Sol Sanctum. I've tweaked some critical plot points I didn't like, so there may be a few surprises for you. CONTAINS SPOILERS. Chapter 9 is now up!
1. Prologue

Sole Dorato: Lui Restaurarà  
by Tafkae

_Prologue_

* * *

_Warning 1: This story does not follow the games exactly. It replaces the parts I didn't like with parts I do like, for one thing._

_Warning 2: Despite Warning 1, **this story contains massive spoilers about the end of the second game, even in the early chapters!** So if I inadvertently ruin the game for you, I'm sorry, but don't ever, ever say I didn't warn you._

* * *

One coat to guard against the harsh northern winds. A spare tunic, some extra pants. The other pair of boots, the ones designed for warmer climates than this, just in case. After all, Alex didn't know how far he might end up going. 

He closed his rucksack and slung it onto his back, then glanced at the clock. Only four o'clock; right on schedule. There was still plenty of time to take a leisurely walk to the docks and cast off as soon as the sun rose. With any luck at all, he'd be miles away by the time anyone realized he'd really gone through with what he'd been saying he'd do for weeks.

Smiling, he turned to the door—and found himself face to face with his younger sister.

"You're really going, aren't you," said Mia.

"Well, I can't _yet,_ you're in the doorway."

"I can't believe you're doing this," she snapped. "Imil needs you! You can't just leave!"

"That's not why you're upset," said Alex, placing his hands on his hips. "You're upset about the lighthouse."

"Of course I'm upset about the lighthouse! It's our family's sacred duty to _keep_ it from being lit, not to _light_ it! You're being stupid."

_"You're_ being stupid. Do you know why the healing spring stopped in the first place? It's because the lighthouse was snuffed." He sighed. "We're the last of the Mercury clan, Mia, you know that. You and I are all that's left of the family. Who will be the healers when we're gone?"

_"Our_ descendents, of course!"

"Yeah, but what if our children someday don't inherit our power? I don't want to take that chance. I won't leave my home in the dark."

He stepped toward the door, but Mia spread her arms and legs to block his path. "You're leaving your home _now._ You're always like this. If something doesn't go your way you just leave."

"Mia—"

"I'm not letting you go!"

"Mia, get out of the—"

_"I won't let you destroy Imil!"_

Alex was silent for a moment. "… I'm not destroying Imil, Mia." He laid his hand firmly on her shoulder. "I'm looking for a way to save it. Now please…"

Suddenly he picked her up by the arms and dropped her on the bed. She shrieked and struggled to find her balance, but by the time she'd managed to get back up, her brother was already in the hallway, saluting her with two fingers.

"I'll be back soon, and I'll bring along a way to talk sense into you, I promise."

And just like that, he was gone.

* * *

It hadn't even been a week since he left when Mount Aleph awoke from its thousand-year slumber. The earthquakes and storms that followed made any kind of travel impossible. It wasn't even safe to send out a search party for two weeks after the eruption. The party returned just a few short days into their search. 

Mia ran all the way to the dock, almost slipping several times on the icy streets. A crowd had already formed, but she just shoved her way through it. "Excuse me… let me through! Excuse me…"

Finally, she broke through the front of the assembly and scanned the faces of the people coming ashore. As their number increased, so did her sense of worry. Alex was not with them.

The leader of the expedition spotted her and frowned. He turned to the man nearest him and spoke in a hush, thinking mistakenly that Mia couldn't hear him.

"I was hoping she wouldn't show up…"

"We shouldn't show her this," the other man whispered. "She's only twelve. She shouldn't have to see it."

"All right. Find some excuse to get her inside…"

Suddenly angry, Mia rushed forward. "What happened? What did you find?" she demanded.

The men looked at each other anxiously, then one sighed and reached into the pouch at his belt. "We found what was left of his ship on the northern shore… and nearby, this."

Mia gasped. In his hand were a scrap of cloth in the exact blue of her brother's cloak, and a few long, tangled strands of hair the same strange color as her own. She fingered her own hair unconsciously, unable to speak; her throat had closed up.

"We searched for as long as we could, but we couldn't find him," the man continued. "I'm … very sorry. We all know how close you were to him."

That wasn't true, Mia thought, they'd never been very close. They'd never really been brother and sister; they'd been two radically different people who happened to share the same parents. They had never been very close. More often than not, she couldn't even stand him and his off-the-wall idealism. In fact, she'd been steaming mad at him when he'd left. She hadn't even seen him off or said goodbye.

Maybe that was why, all of a sudden, she found herself crying like a little girl again.

* * *

_I appreciate reviews, if you'd like to give one!_


	2. Prox

Sole Dorato: Lui Restaurarà

by Tafkae

_Chapter One: Prox_

* * *

_He was caught totally off guard. The storm arose out of nowhere, giving him no time to react. He took down the sail and frantically turned the wheel, at the same time trying with all his might to calm the water enough for him to at least land safely. Every so often, when the waves ebbed, he could see lights on the horizon, and he would be trying to move toward them except that spinning the wheel didn't change his course at all. Since _that_ wasn't doing any good, he desperately bailed out the ship as best he could, but the water came faster than he could clear it off the deck._

_And then he turned around, and saw behind him a wave twice as high as the boat was long. Before he could even move, it came crashing down, snapping the mast like a toothpick and carrying it directly toward him. He shouted, drowned out by the torrential rain; then his entire body cried out to him in agony; and then the rain was gone, the waves were gone, everything was gone, and all he could feel was cold…_

Alex gasped as his eyes flew open. It was cold. He tried to get his bearings, but there was only so much he could see while lying on his back staring at the underside of a thatched roof, so he tried to sit up.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. No."

_Dagnabbit__, I should've known better,_ he thought. _Sure I survived somehow, but that doesn't mean I'm okay._ He put a hand to his abdomen, where the pain had originated, sliding into the "healers' trance" to find out what exactly was wrong with him. All he sensed was minor internal bleeding, that wasn't so bad. He fixed it easily and moved on to inspecting the rest of his body for injuries.

The hit list was more or less what he expected: mostly superficial wounds, except that both his legs were broken in more distinct places than he would have liked. On the other hand, someone had apparently splinted them. It was while he was setting to work healing them that he realized that not only had his legs been splinted by someone, but he was also wearing someone else's clothes.

After finishing with the worse leg, he finally took a break to inspect the room around him. It was a small place not very unlike the type you'd see in Imil, with thick white walls and a fire flickering in the hearth. He himself was seated on an unexpectedly soft floor mat. But he couldn't identify whose house it was, and it certainly wasn't his, which would be the logical place to take him if he _were_ in Imil. Apparently, that meant he was now somewhere else. Satisfied for the time being, he began healing up his other leg.

He had just gotten done with that when he heard a crash behind him. He whirled around to see a little boy who, it seemed, had been holding a ceramic jug until very recently, and was now going to have to sweep up the pieces. The strange thing was, though, that the little boy's skin and hair were both distinctly sky blue, and those were definitely _scales_ on his shoulders.

When he realized the boy wasn't going to say anything, Alex smiled cautiously and waved. "Hi there! What's your name?"

The boy trembled and swallowed a few times. "T-T-Tessius," he stammered.

"Nice to meet you, Tessius. My name is Alex." With that, he started untying the knots binding the splints to his legs.

Tessius stepped forward hesitantly. "M-Mister, don't take off the planks! Then your legs will heal funny…"

Alex, ignoring him, finished removing the splints and flexed his legs a few times; then he actually got to his feet, to Tessius' stunned amazement. "It's all right, they've healed up just fine. Take a look," he added.

Cautiously, the boy approached him, finally squatted down by his knee, and gingerly touched it. "That doesn't hurt?" he asked incredulously.

"Not a bit," replied Alex. "You though…" He bent down and looked Tessius deep in the eyes. "Just how long have you been playing outside? You're blue as a jaybird."

It seemed that was too much excitement for Tessius. _"D…DADDY!"_ he screamed, running away out of the room.

Startled, Alex followed his path into the hallway. "No, no, wait, I didn't mean it—"

"Ah, don't worry about it, sir, he's always jittery like that—"

From the doorway across the narrow hallway emerged a man, every bit as blue as the boy, and only slightly less surprised. The man was staring at his legs. "Ah – please, sir, you must rest…"

"I'm fine," declined Alex.

"Sir, I am a doctor!"

"And I'm a healer." Alex smiled. "We get roughly the same results, but my way is much faster and more reliable."

For a moment the doctor stared at him as if he were insane, then conceded and reluctantly returned the smile. "A healer… Well. Then I suppose that makes my post a bit superfluous for the time being."

"For the time being, maybe. So where exactly have I washed up?"

The doctor gestured toward a nearby window, which was half drifted over with snow. "You're in the city of Prox. And… well, if it isn't too much trouble, the Elder explicitly told me to bring you to talk to him as soon as you could walk."

Alex nodded his assent, and the doctor returned the nod. "Tessius!" he called. "Bring the down coat."

Waiting for Tessius, Alex took a closer look through the window. Everything outside it was covered in a light blanket of snow which was still falling softly, yet he saw people here and there going about with only light jackets, if they wore jackets at all. What's more, every last one of them, men, women, and children, were various shades of blue, pink, or green. The doctor chuckled nearby. "It even snows in the summertime here. Surprised?"

Alex looked back at him. "I'm more surprised at … well, there's no one with your … pigmentation … where I come from."

"Ah, yes," said the doctor. "That's true. It's unique trait of Prox." Just then Tessius skidded down the hallway, out of breath, holding a heavy coat, which the doctor passed on to Alex. "Wear this. I've heard outsiders are less hardy against the cold than we are. _That_ coat I've only had to use a few times, for house calls in nasty blizzards." He sounded proud.

"Thanks," said Alex, glancing back at the window as he donned the coat. This time, though, his reflection jumped out at him; it was still spotted with bruises. "Well! No wonder the poor boy was so afraid, I look like I've been in a shipwreck."

He quickly healed himself to presentability while following the doctor to wherever they would meet the town elder. A group of children stopped in the middle of their snowball fight to stare at him. One of the smaller pink ones whispered loudly, "Look, he's so white…" and was quickly shushed by a nearby bigger kid. Alex waved at them, but they didn't wave back. A little discomfited, he sped up a bit to keep with the doctor's pace.

Before long, the man led him to a building that shared the thatched roof and snowdrift-lined walls of the house he'd just left, except that this one was at least twice as big and had a second story, where the other houses, he noticed, were limited to one or one with a loft. Inside, the ground floor was devoted mainly to a large meeting room in which nine men in varying stages of old age (as well as varying skin tones) sat in a large half-circle, already discussing something.

"… but the mountain having erupted, they've surely been burnt to a crisp!"

"That is supposition, not fact."

"You're too optimistic. It is the exact spot we _sent_ them to, they were undoubtedly there when it happened."

"My son would not let himself die in such a fashion!"

"Your son, your son. Is that all you talk about?"

"Quiet!" wheezed the one seated in the center, obviously the oldest of them all and a sickly shade of green. "You eight bicker and bicker while guests are standing in the doorway getting cold, shame on you. Come in, come in…"

The doctor stepped forward first. "I'm sorry to disturb your council, Elder, but you did tell me…"

"Yes, I know what I said, young man. Thank you, you may go." The doctor nodded and left, and the Elder looked to Alex. "Well, what are you waiting for? Come in."

Alex obeyed, stopping a few feet before the end of the Old Men's Semicircle. "I can only suppose you'd like to know who I am," he said.

"Now, I called you here because we – oh. Yes, what you said! You're ahead of me," the Elder chuckled.

Alex nodded. "My name is Alex, I'm from—"

"Splendid, splendid," the Elder interrupted. "What I most wonder, though, how is it you look like you were never injured?" He leaned forward in his seat. "I was there when the fishers brought you in, you know, and no one was sure you'd make it…"

All eyes in the room were now on him, as if just having noticed that detail. Alex couldn't restrain a grin. "It just so happens I'm a healer," he said proudly.

One of the councilmen heaved a sigh. "That's a shame. For a second I thought one of ours might have grown some talent."

"Hush. They try."

"Doesn't mean they _can_."

The Elder's eyes suddenly lit up. "I wonder… a healer, and with your hair…" Alex glanced quickly at the teal strands draped over his shoulders. "Can it be that… the people of Lemuria have returned to us, after all this time…?"

"Afraid not," said Alex, raising one eyebrow. "I've never heard of Lemuria. My hometown is Imil."

"Oh." The Elder sank back into his chair, clearly disappointed. "I suppose there's no need to recover the ship, then."

Alex blinked. "It wasn't destroyed?"

"Of course it was!" said the Elder. "Half of it washed ashore and no one's seen the other half. Had it been a Lemurian ship, though, it would still be well worth recovering. They're damned fine pieces of craftsmanship, they are. The only decent sailing ship in Prox is Lemurian-made, and we've had it for close to five hundred years."

"That's pretty astonishing," said Alex.

"I agree. Unfortunately, it's out of port at the moment, or we'd return you to Imil straightaway. But Saturos and the others ought to return in a few days, oughtn't they?"

"Assuming they're alive," one of the others grumbled.

"Oh, give them some credit," the Elder snapped. "Now, Alex, you said your name was?" Alex nodded. "I've only got one last question… the Northern Reaches are treacherous waters, no matter the weather. Where were you headed, that you needed to sail?"

"I'm going to Vale. I agree the land route's safer, but the pass from Imil was blocked and I didn't want to wait a month to leave."

The council murmured amongst itself; Vale obviously meant something to them. "What about Vale is so urgent it couldn't wait a month?" one asked suspiciously.

"I'm impatient," Alex shrugged. "I wanted to find out if it was true, that they know how to relight the Mercury Lighthouse."

Suddenly all nine men fell utterly silent. At first Alex was afraid he'd misspoken somehow, but the Elder's next comment assuaged his worry. "It seems," he said, "that your goal is not too far removed from our own."

* * *

A few days later, Alex stood at the northern outskirts of Prox, looking out over the bleak countryside surrounding the city. Far away, through the haze and falling snow, he could just barely make out the shape of the red tower of the Mars Lighthouse. Just a few miles beyond that tower, they said, lay the end of the world. He wondered if they meant that literally.

Pulling his coat tighter, he slid down the snowbank he'd been standing on and started making his way back to the inn, where he was staying. It was considerably colder here than in Imil, and that was saying something; he was starting to have trouble pretending he didn't mind the climate. _At any rate, I'll be going back home soon,_ he thought, _so I can put up with it for a little while longer._

He turned over the information they'd given him in his mind. _The world is falling apart. If the four lighthouses are not lit soon, it will crumble. The sparks to light them are in Vale, and the people of Vale will not let anyone have them. Note: conflict of interest._ Saturos, whoever he was, was supposed to be out convincing Vale to give up the sparks. When he got back, they would head to Imil to set Mercury alight again. Or at least, that was what he'd been told.

He was pulled from his thoughts by a sudden commotion about town, as people here and there began to run toward the docks, where a ship with a dragon's head adorning the prow was coming into port. _That must be their Lemurian ship that's coming back,_ Alex realized. His spirits lifting, he sped up to join the small crowd gathering at the dock.

He arrived just in time to see, between the heads of the few people in front of him, two figures hop off deck and descend a ladder hung over the railing. A girl of about sixteen broke from the crowd and rushed into the arms of the second one, a pink woman with long, yellow hair. "Sister!"

The first one off the ship, a blue-skinned man, stepped forward as the gathering parted to let the Elder through. "Saturos!" the old man greeted him. "And Menardi. I think I speak for all of us when I say I'm glad for your safe return. The success of your journey blesses us all." He paused for a moment, then leaned sideways to look toward the end of the dock. "Where are the others?"

Saturos heaved a deep, annoyed sigh. "They didn't make it," he said eventually.

The crowd stirred and murmured at this; the Elder himself looked especially stunned. "Do you mean… six of Prox's finest warriors… just like that?"

"We underestimated Sol Sanctum," Menardi elaborated, gently pushing her younger sister away. "The mountain blew up in our faces in the middle of the raid. Saturos and I managed to escape, but the rest… fell behind."

The Elder drooped, leaning heavily on his cane. "This is… such terrible news… tragic…"

"But—" Menardi's sister interjected "—but they succeeded! Isn't _that_ good news?"

Saturos and Menardi stiffened. "Karst—" Menardi began.

"Since they've got the Stars, the others didn't die for nothing. Stop acting like it's a _complete_ disaster, because it's not!"

"Karst!"

Karst stopped and looked up.

"We didn't get the Stars, Karst," said Menardi.

"The mission _was_ a disaster," Saturos added reluctantly.

Now the murmurs of the crowd became shouts. "All that and you didn't bring them?" "Why did we send _him?_ A monkey could have handled this better!" "Bastard! Why didn't you save my son!" "Failure! All Saturos brings us is _failure!"_

_"SHUT UP!"_ roared Saturos. "You'd give up that easily and still have the guts to call yourselves the Fire Clan! I _know_ how important this is! _We have not been defeated!"_

The crowd quieted. Even Alex found himself speechless at the fury of the outburst.

"I know what we're up against now," Saturos continued. "I'm going back to Vale the second they let their guard down again. I'll do it alone if I have to, but _I will restore Prox!"_

Without another word, he shoved his way through the crowd and stormed into the city. Angry, the crowd dispersed, leaving only the Elder, Alex, and Menardi and her sister standing there on the dock. Alex followed Saturos with his eyes until he disappeared behind a snowbank.

"What's this?" said Menardi's voice. Alex looked back to see the woman pointing at him.

"Oh, this is Alex," the Elder replied. "He was shipwrecked on our shores not too long ago. Incidentally, he's a water adept, that might interest you."

Alex blinked. _I feel like I ought to know what that means._

Menardi's eyebrows lifted in obvious interest. "Yes, that's astonishingly convenient." She looked back at the Elder and gestured at the ship behind her with her thumb. "Speaking of which, we picked someone up on the way back."

"Who?" said Karst.

Menardi shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't been able to wake him up to ask him."

"You sure he's alive?"

"At the moment? Probably." She paused. "At least, I doubt he would have croaked in the last five minutes, when he's already been hanging on for five _days_…"

Alex's eyes went wide. "Are you saying you just left a dying man unattended on your boat!" Not waiting for an answer, he bolted to the ship and up the ladder.

_"Hey!"_ Karst shouted, chasing him. "Idiot, you can't go on our ship!"

Alex ignored her and entered the cabin. The missing passenger wasn't hard to find. Lying on a mat near the wall was a young man in terrible shape. His skin was appallingly grimy, his clothes tattered and damp, and his long, dark brown hair clumped and matted in every direction. In addition, he was dotted here and there with bruises and a few nasty cuts, some of which had been haphazardly bandaged in such a way that it seemed like whoever had done it was trying to keep blood from getting on the mat, not stop the bleeding. After five days of travel, it seemed the superficial injuries were already beginning to subside somewhat; however, as Alex examined deeper, it appeared the journey had _aggravated_ most of the man's _serious_ wounds, or at least hadn't remotely helped them.

Karst looked over Alex's shoulder as he deliberated what to fix first. "Wow… he's filthy."

"He's dying," Alex corrected, irritated.

"Same thing. Geez. What'd you do to him, sis?" she asked Menardi, who had just come into the cabin herself.

"All we did was fish him out of a river," said Menardi almost defensively.

"Well, that explains why he's half drowned," Alex replied, cross. "Unfortunately, that's the least of his worries right now. This is going to be a lot of work."

"I didn't _ask_ you to heal him, you know."

"But you _expect_ me to. And I don't blame you, I'm certainly the best one for the job." He laid one hand on the man's chest and the other on his forehead. "What actually happened to him?" he asked as he began the mending.

Menardi shrugged. "I don't know exactly. The town got pretty chaotic when the volcano erupted. Rubble flying everywhere, everyone trying to save their houses and chickens, all that nonsense. My guess is he was knocked into the river by some flying rubble."

"So he's actually _from_ Vale," Alex conjectured. "But … why risk his life to bring him all the way up here, when you could have dropped him off at his own house?"

Menardi smiled knowingly. "Just heal him, outsider."

* * *

After that, Alex didn't try to engage her or Karst in conversation again, and instead concentrated on healing their passenger. Over two hours later, although on the verge of exhaustion, he sat back and sighed. "There, finished."

"About time," said Menardi, slapping her book to the table and walking over to join him. Her sister had gotten bored and left long before. "If you're done, why isn't he awake?" she asked.

"I haven't woken him yet," said Alex facetiously. "However, since I'm just as eager to learn his name as you are, I'll oblige." He leaned forward and shook his patient. "Hey. You're alive, wake up."

"You're sure enthused."

"Nah, I'm just tired." He shook him harder. "Heeee—"

"JENNA!" the man shouted, sitting bolt upright.

For a few seconds the others were silent, as he tried to get his bearings; Alex seemed to have been startled into temporary speechlessness. "… Who are you?" the man asked at last.

"Menardi," said Menardi.

"Ehh, I'm Alex," said Alex, regaining his composure. "Incidentally, I just saved your life. What's your name?"

The man hesitated, looking back and forth between them. "Felix," he finally answered.

"Nice to meet you," Alex said pleasantly, extending a hand. Felix shook it uncertainly, but had something else heavily on his mind.

"Where… where's my family?"

Alex looked to Menardi, who frowned. "I don't know who your family is," she said. "There were a few other bodies we dredged out of the river, but you were the only one alive."

Felix stiffened. "I… what did they look like?"

"I don't remember," Menardi groaned. "I think two of them had dark hair, the third one was a blond guy."

"Was there … a girl with red hair?"

"Um… no. No, I don't think so."

Felix closed his eyes and nodded a little, trembling, but didn't say anything further. After a minute or so of awkward silence, Alex stood up and patted him on the shoulder. "Come on, it's been a long day. You must be starving," he said.

As if on cue, Felix's stomach growled.

* * *

Menardi ditched them as soon as they were off the ship, leaving the two of them to their own devices for dinner. The inn wasn't crowded, but the few eyes in the room were fixed on them even after they sat down. "Who the hell are those?" "Not _more_ of them…"

Once they'd ordered their food, Felix leaned forward some. "Alex, who _are_ these people?" he asked almost in a whisper.

Alex shrugged. "I don't know them. I've only been here a few days myself."

"That's not what I –" He sighed. _"What_ are these people?"

"Proxians," said Alex simply. "I don't know why it is, they all look like that."

"And that would make this… Proxia?" asked Felix, suddenly remembering he hadn't yet asked where he'd ended up.

"Close. Prox. From what I can tell, it's about as far north as you can go without falling off the end of the world," Alex explained.

"Must be pretty far from Vale, then…" Felix inferred, and Alex nodded. "But why did you bring me all the way here?"

_"Me?"_ said Alex. "I didn't. Menardi got you out of the river and brought you here, she said – I just healed you when they got here."

Felix blinked. "You … healed me? Well, uh, thank you," he said tentatively. "Does, uh… does that mean … are you an adept?"

Alex smiled and shrugged. "That's the second time today I've been called that, and I don't know what you mean by it, so sure."

"You can use Psynergy," Felix tried.

"Which is what?"

"It's—" He had to think for a moment. "It's a sort of power, associated with an element…"

"Like water, for instance."

"I guess so." He'd never heard of a _water_ adept, but anything was possible…

"Then yes." Alex leaned back against his chair. "Yes, by that definition I guess I _am_ an adept. Why do you ask, are _you?"_

Felix hesitated, then nodded slowly. "Yes."

His indecision bothered Alex. "'Yes' yes or 'no' yes?"

"Yes," Felix said more firmly, then paused. "We really aren't supposed to talk about it with outsiders, but being an adept yourself…"

"So I'm automatically trustworthy? Well, can't argue with that logic," Alex remarked half-jokingly.

"Well, that's not _exactly—"_

"No, I understand." He grinned. "Now, getting back to your first question. I don't know why Menardi and Saturos decided to bring you back to Prox with them. Right now I'm guessing they want you to do something for them, but you never can tell with people you just met…"

Felix didn't say anything, deep in thought. Finally, just as his companion was about to pick up the stranded conversation, he said, "Alex, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell them I'm an adept."

"Hm? … _Ohhhh_, I see what you're getting at," replied Alex.

"Yeah. Things like this are the whole _reason_ we're not supposed to let outsiders know. And if they think I'm not who they're looking for, they might let me go home just that much sooner and—"

He cut himself off and ran a hand anxiously through his hair. Alex finished his sentence for him. "Worried about Jenna?"

Felix jumped. "How did you know her name?"

"I guessed. It was the first thing you blurted out when you woke up. Is she your sister?"

He nodded. "She's twelve. I just…"

"Ahh." Alex's face brightened a little. "How about that? Our sisters are the same age."

"You have a sister?"

"Funny how much we have in common!" he remarked. "I can understand you're worried; I am too. But –" he sat forward and rested his elbows on the table "– I find that little sisters are incredibly resilient creatures. There's a point where I have to let go and trust that she'll take care of herself."

Felix stood up, unable to believe what he was hearing. "Alex, our parents are _gone!_ And for all she knows, I'm dead and washed out to sea, too! What do you want her to do? She's only twelve and she has _no one left!"_

By the time he finished, he was shouting in Alex's face. Everyone in the establishment was staring intensely at the two of them. Alex sighed, seemingly unfazed by his outburst. "Please sit down, Felix."

"Don't just pretend everything is going to be all right for her!"

"Felix, please."

"No! You can't just… you can't…" His clenched fists trembled. "It's not all right. You don't know her, you can't understand. Just – leave me alone."

Alex watched sadly as Felix stormed out of the inn into the cold.

* * *

_Alex is fun to write for. Jynx: Yes, Alex and Felix are my favorites out of the antagonists.   
Elisa: It can really be taken either way, since Alex and Mia's relationship is hardly explored at all in the game. I personally think they make cute siblings. _

Thanks for your reviews, more are of course appreciated. :)


	3. Gaia Falls

Sole Dorato: Lui Restaurarà

by Tafkae

_Chapter Two: Gaia Falls_

* * *

The next morning, Alex was awakened by a young green man he'd never seen before. "Wake up. The Elder wishes that you be present."

Outside the sky was already quite light, despite the early hour. Thanks to having spent his entire life in the far north, Alex was used to unbearably long days during the summer, but still, it had clearly been light out for hours, and that seemed a bit ridiculous. Shivering even through the thick coat the doctor had given him, he trudged through the snow to the Elder's home.

Inside, in the large meeting room from before, the Elder was seated in the usual place. Interestingly, Saturos and Menardi had taken the place of the old men from the last time, both seated in what seemed like a very formal way to the Elder's right. The old fellow greeted Alex as he entered. "Ah, there you are, young sir. Do have a seat," and he gestured to the cushions on his left. Alex nodded and sat cross-legged on one of them. "The reason I called you here is I think this pertains to you," the Elder continued. "We are discussing the plans for a second expedition."

Menardi nodded. "We don't have much. It's been established more than once—" she glared briefly at Saturos, apparently he'd been complaining "—that our original plan should have gone off without a hitch, had it not been for the late Tragus' inability to keep his hands to himself."

"So are you just going to use a repeat of your original plan, then?" said Alex.

"Not exactly," said Saturos with a smirk. "We can do more or less the same as before at Sol Sanctum, assuming we don't bring any screw-ups along like last time. But the new plan is a little different once we actually get to the lighthouses."

"As you probably know, only an adept of the same element as the lighthouse can open and light it," Menardi began. "Thus, the Mars Lighthouse is the easiest for us, partially because it's just a few miles away, but also because – well, Alex, did you wonder why we call ourselves the Fire Clan when we live in a frozen wasteland?"

"I had wondered that," said Alex truthfully.

"It's because every last citizen of Prox is a fire adept," said Menardi. In demonstration, she outstretched her hand and it burst into flames.

Alex raised his eyebrows. "That makes sense. Wow, that _is_ convenient, then."

"Yes. But it's less convenient when we come to the other three lighthouses. For the Jupiter Lighthouse, we need a wind adept. For the Venus Lighthouse, we need an earth adept. And for the Mercury Lighthouse, we need a water adept."

"Which would be me."

Saturos and Menardi nodded. "We've had an incredible stroke of luck lately," said Saturos. "First you come to us in a shipwreck, and then we find an earth adept who won't be missed because he's presumed dead."

At this Alex felt a pang of obligation, and decided to play devil's advocate for a bit. "Are you sure Felix is an earth adept?" he asked.

The others paused. "Not… exactly," Menardi admitted at last.

"Vale's made up entirely of earth and fire adepts, so it was a fifty-fifty chance," said Saturos. "He's _from_ Vale, so he's undoubtedly an adept, either way."

"But what if he turns out to be, say, a fire adept? Or even not an adept at all? Anything's possible," he defended, noting the increasing aggravation in Saturos' face.

"Well," said Menardi, before Saturos could bark something out, "if he's not an earth adept, then we simply don't need him."

"So you'd send him home?"

At this Saturos laughed aloud, and Menardi chuckled, as if he'd just suggested they dress up in chicken suits and run through the streets singing children's songs. "Let's put it this way," said Saturos, calming a little. "He's already presumed dead, so no one will even notice if we drop the 'presumed.' Get it?"

Alex's chest seized up. "You'd _kill_ him!" he exclaimed, horrified.

"I never said that," said Saturos. "But it _is_ the best way to keep him quiet. Just by bringing him here, there's an extremely high chance he'll connect us to the raid and the eruption, if he hasn't already. If his people find out that we – that _anyone_ – was responsible for those events, we'll never be able to execute a second raid at all."

"The entire city is xenophobic and paranoid," Menardi added. "It was hard enough getting into Sol Sanctum when they had their guard _down._ It would be almost _impossible_ if they had any idea we were coming."

"Whatever the case, he obviously can't go back," Saturos finished. "And I don't intend to keep him around if he's no use to us."

Alex thought for a moment. "Would you kill _me_ if I decided I wanted to go back to Imil, at this point?" he asked slowly.

"Probably not," said Menardi. "No, you could go back, but we'd definitely come for you when we arrived to light Mercury. It doesn't matter to Imil whether we raid Sol Sanctum or not, and even if it did, they wouldn't be able to do anything to stop us."

"Not that I want to back out," Alex added. "It's just good to know I still have a choice."

"How long do you plan to wait before retrying the mission?" the Elder asked in a low, gravelly voice.

Saturos looked to Menardi, who sighed. "At least a year and a half. Maybe more."

"_A year and a half!"_ exclaimed Saturos.

"People _died,_ Saturos!" shouted Menardi. "They won't forget that quickly. If no one had died, I would say six months at the most. But grief lasts longer than anxiety. They won't forget the people who died because of us."

Saturos sighed a groan.

"Point taken," said Alex gravely. "But what do we do in the meantime?"

Menardi shrugged. "You can do as you like, though I'd rather you stay in Prox where we can keep an eye on you."

The Elder interjected again. "Alex, you _did_ say you would help us wherever possible, did you not?"

Alex blinked. "Yes, something like that."

"Good, good." The old man nodded. "Well, you've proven yourself an exceptional healer; perhaps you could show our few how it's done."

Saturos chuckled. "Good idea. You ask those girls to heal a paper cut and they'll burn your arm off."

"No one asked for your opinion," said Menardi indignantly.

"I'd be happy to," said Alex, though it wasn't the only reason he wanted to remain in Prox. _Either_ _Felix stays here, or they kill him._ His fellow outsider had no chance at all of returning home, no chance to go back to his sister. It wouldn't be fair to Felix for him to leave.

"Good! So it's settled," said the Elder.

Saturos and Menardi looked at each other, nodded, and got to their feet. Unsure of how to act, Alex stood with them. "The healing house isn't far, anyone can tell you were it is," Menardi told him. He didn't miss the implication that she didn't want to bother. "By the way, thank you for your suggestion," she added as an afterthought.

"My suggestion?"

She nodded and smiled. "We're going to go find out whether or not bringing him here was wasted effort."

As they left the room, Alex's face fell uncomfortably. _This won't end well,_ he thought.

* * *

Felix was roused from a turbulent nightmare by a hand roughly shaking his shoulder. Unsure for a moment of where he was, he instinctively slapped the hand away and, in his frantic struggle to get out of the covers, he stifled a curse as his head struck the headboard.

_Where – the inn._ _Prox. Cold. YOU._

The hand belonged to Menardi, who didn't look particularly overjoyed to see him; a blue man (Saturos?) stood just outside the door to the room. "Get dressed and get your ass outside," the former snapped, then turned, left, and shut the door gruffly behind her.

They were waiting for him outside the inn, in the middle of the large, open, snow-coated town square. He jogged to approach them. "What is it?" he asked.

Menardi stepped back a few paces. Felix had just enough time to wonder why she was doing that, before he glimpsed a blue fist heading for his face. He ducked in barely enough time to avoid the punch, but then found himself taking a knee to the gut instead. Winded, he rolled away and struggled to his feet, trying to catch his breath.

Saturos waited for him, laughing. "Come on! Try it. I'm wide open."

Felix knew better than to give in to the taunts. Instead, he braced his feet and held up his fists defensively. Saturos rolled his eyes. "All right, have it your way."

In the blink of an eye, he was right next to Felix again, arm outstretched. Felix dodged, saw an opening, and aimed a blow for Saturos' stomach. It never hit. Saturos caught his fist and twisted it painfully, dragging the rest of his body with it. Felix's cry of pain was stifled as the Proxian's other hand caught his upturned chin and drove him into the ground headfirst. Passers-by who had stopped to watch cringed.

Saturos laughed and stepped triumphantly around his prostrate opponent. But Felix didn't stay disoriented for long; he quickly pulled his leg back and kicked Saturos hard in the kneecap. It wasn't a great hit – really he only clipped it – but it threw Saturos off balance long enough for him to get back on his feet. Saturos growled and flexed his knee a couple times, enough to make sure it wasn't damaged. "Lucky shot, kid," he snapped. "But I swear, if you throw your hands or feet at me again—"

Felix was shocked to see a large _fireball_ appear in each of Saturos' hands. "—I will _burn them off!"_

His first thought was _Holy shit, he's a fire adept!_

Quickly regaining his balance and his composure, he started circling to stall for time, and thankfully, Saturos followed his lead, though still holding the fireballs. _What's this guy trying to do? I met him not five minutes ago and he's already trying to kill me?_

_No, that can't be it. He's definitely a lot stronger than me – if he wanted to kill me, I'd be dead._ Then it hit him. _That's it – he's trying to badger me into doing something specific…_

"_If you throw your hands or feet at me again."_

Felix's eyes went wide with the realization. _He's trying to force me to use Psynergy against him!_ He had promised himself he wouldn't do so, but right now it didn't look like he had much of a choice.

Suddenly, Saturos got tired of going around in circles and lunged across the diameter with a yell. Hardly thinking, Felix dropped down and rammed his palms into the ground, and at the same time an earthen pillar erupted from the ground under Saturos' feet, sending him flying. Felix turned, not wanting to expose his back to his opponent, who had (not surprisingly) landed in a shoulder roll and was already upright again. However, he didn't look like he was going to continue the fight; actually, he was clapping very smugly. "Nice… very nice. That's all I needed to know."

"What do you people _want_ with me?" Felix demanded.

Menardi's voice chimed from behind him, startling him. "That was all for now. Just go about your business, and we'll talk to you later. Come on, Saturos."

Saturos joined her and they began to leave. Felix glared indignantly at their backs. "So I'm an earth adept! What does that matter to you?" he shouted after them.

Menardi turned and chuckled. "In due time, Felix. In due time."

Then they were gone.

* * *

"Promise me you won't fight him again for a while," said Alex. "I'm going to have my work cut out for me at my job as it is, it sounds like."

Felix hesitated; he hadn't even sat down yet. He was at the healing house because that's where he'd been told Alex was, not the same reason anybody else was there.

"Want me to…?" the healer suggested casually.

Felix shook his head. "No, don't bother. It's nothing."

"Alright," said Alex as the other man sat down at the other end of the bench from him.

"So you've got a job?" Felix asked.

Alex nodded. "It's a teaching gig. I'm going to take four young, untalented fire adepts and turn them into seasoned healers. Or at least, everyone _says_ they're untalented…"

Felix blinked. "Fire adepts can be healers?"

"Don't ask me. I'm not even sure I'm qualified for this, but it's something to do at least." He stood up and stretched out his back. "They'll be here any minute. Do you want to sit in or something?"

"I don't know." Felix shook his head. "Menardi said to 'go about my business.' I don't _have_ any business. What does she want me to do?"

"I only met her yesterday myself," Alex pointed out.

"I know, I know." Felix sighed, annoyed. "I don't even know why I'm asking you."

"Well, I'm not Proxian. That might be why. To be honest, I'm a little anxious talking to people around here yet, too," he explained. "But I think we'll all get used to each other relatively soon. Hopefully in time for—"

He stopped, suddenly realizing he'd almost said too much. Felix didn't fail to notice. "In time for what?"

Alex shrugged. "I don't know. It'll be a while."

Felix stood up. "They've let you in on something they're not telling me, haven't they."

"No! Of course not," Alex lied.

"Why am I even bothering? You're as much of a foreigner as they are." Not giving Alex a chance to respond, Felix stormed out of the healing house, passing four young Proxians who were coming in.

Alex got up, about to follow him, but was stopped by one of the girls, who turned out to be Menardi's sister that had met them at the boat. "Hey! Are you supposed to be our teacher or something?" she demanded.

He stopped and looked at them. The sister (he couldn't remember her name offhand) was the oldest of the four girls; of the other three, one was blue and not too much younger than her, and the other two, both pink and apparently twins, were probably about eleven. "Ah, hello!" he greeted them, just as the door slammed behind Felix. "You're … Karla, right?"

"Karst! It's Karst!" She stomped her foot loudly to emphasize her name.

"Karst, right. Sorry," Alex chuckled, still watching the door. Then he wrested his attention away and clapped his hands once in well-faked enthusiasm. "Well, Karst and friends, I guess we'd… better get straight to it, eh?"

* * *

After briefly stopping to ask someone for directions and then almost being detained by a pair of especially mean-looking Proxian guards, Felix finally got to enter the large meeting room of the town's Elder. The old man had apparently been sleeping and recently awakened, judging by the frequency of his yawning. "Well, hello, young man, you must be the foreigner Saturos and Menardi told me about," he said groggily.

Felix bowed tersely, trying to be polite in spite of his distinctly impolite mood, and proclaimed incisively, "Sir, I would like to go back to Vale."

The Elder took a deep, audible breath through his nose, and didn't answer right away. Unsure of how to interpret his silence, Felix elaborated. "I'm well enough to go home, there's no reason for me to stay here, and – and my younger sister is waiting for me! I won't hide that I'm worried sick—"

"No, no, I can understand why you would wish to return," the Elder piped up suddenly, motioning for him to calm down. "But, uh… how can I put this." He stroked his long beard, thinking. "No, there really isn't another way to say it. We can't allow you to leave," he said firmly.

Felix frowned, surprised and confused. "What do you mean? Why not?"

The Elder shook his head slowly. "It's complicated, son."

"What's so complicated? I – I know your people saved my life after the eruption, and believe me, I'm grateful, but there's no reason to—"

"Well, that's just it. If your kinsmen were to learn of our involvement at Sol Sanctum—"

"Wait, _what_ involvement?" Felix demanded. "Involvement at Sol Sanctum? What does that mean?"

The Elder halted, realizing he'd slipped. Felix set his eyes firmly on the old man's, determined not to leave until he had some answers. The Elder seemed to notice his resolve, and sighed. "Nothing. Nothing, that is not what I meant to say."

Every muscle in Felix's body tensed. "Saturos and Menardi – they were in Vale when Mount Aleph erupted! What were they doing there? You sent them to Sol Sanctum, is that it?" He stepped forward. "You sent them to Sol Sanctum and they set off an eruption that _killed my parents!"_

The Elder took a deep sigh; his calm attitude made the situation even more infuriating. "Sir, while I am heartily sorry for what happened, we could not have known…"

"Couldn't have known what?" Felix snapped. "Couldn't have known that Sol Sanctum is full of deadly traps? Couldn't have known that one misstep can bring the whole mountain down? Anybody in Vale could tell you that!"

Obviously distressed, the Elder closed his eyes and turned them away. "Now is not a good time to explain … right now, nothing could make you understand. I will … explain everything, but at a later time. I am very sorry." He rested his forehead in one bony, green hand and waved the other slightly in dismissal. "Please go. Just for a bit. I must collect my thoughts…"

Felix started to refuse, but the Proxian guards escorted him (a bit gruffly) from the house before he could get the words out.

Once outside, he slumped against the side of the building in a snowdrift. The snow was falling harder than it had been this morning, but he really didn't care. Right now, he didn't care at all.

_Saturos and Menardi._ The names danced mockingly in his head, making his blood run hot despite the cold. _Saturos and Menardi killed my parents. Saturos and Menardi kidnapped me and won't let me return home. Saturos and Menardi left my sister alone._

Jenna… He closed his eyes. It must have been only a few days ago that he'd seen her, but it seemed like forever. Was she all right? Had she been hurt in the landslide at all? Had she been on the bridge that was washed away? He couldn't remember. Menardi had said they hadn't seen her, so he decided to take her word at least on that point… Jenna was all he had left now. And he was all she had left.

But he wasn't there to be there for her.

_Saturos and Menardi._

Suddenly enraged again, he jolted to his feet. It didn't matter how strong they were. He was going to find them and tear the earth out from under them.

And Alex would know where to find them.

* * *

"This isn't working!" the blue girl whined. "I don't feel a _thing."_

Alex scowled at himself. He'd been trying to explain the healers' trance to them, but it had been a half hour already and they'd made no progress at all. "All right, all right. I told you, I'm the exact _opposite_ of a fire adept, so I don't have the slightest idea whether your way of healing works the same way as mine."

"Then why are you even _here?"_ said one of the twins. "Anyway you're supposed to be teaching us healing, not this weird meditation garbage!"

"Now, look here—"

"This is such a waste of time," said Karst, getting to her feet. "I'm out of here."

Alex groaned. "Karst, please come back. I'm trying my best, but a tower isn't built overnight. Especially without plans."

Karst rolled her eyes exaggeratedly and was about to retort when Felix burst through the door, letting in a swirl of snow as he did. "Alex!" he shouted angrily. "Where are Saturos and Menardi?"

"What do you want to know that for?" Karst snapped.

"Oh, come on—Felix, I told you already—" Alex stood up.

"I don't care. I don't care! It is _their fault, _all this is _their fault._ My parents are _dead_ because of _them,_ Alex."

"What?"

"They broke into Sol Sanctum, they set off an eruption, they won't let me go home—"

"Where did you go just now?"

"I talked with the Elder."

"He told you everything?"

"He told me enough. Obviously not as much as he's told you. Now _where are they?"_

"Are you trying to say you're going to try and kill my sister?" said Karst haughtily. "Sounds like fun! I'll sell tickets. It's always a good time watching an outsider get his ass handed to him."

Felix almost snapped, but Alex thrust an arm between him and Karst. "Both of you, please! Felix, believe me, nobody meant any harm—"

"I don't _care_ what they _meant!_ What matters is what they _did!"_

"Would you _calm down!"_ Alex shouted before he was finished, trying to yell over his voice. It worked; Felix fell silent except for the sound of his breathing. Alex sighed. "Felix, I really don't know what to tell you, except… _please_ don't try to fight them. They don't consider you irreplaceable."

"'Irreplaceable'?"

He moved closer so he could speak more quietly without the girls overhearing. "This is no time to get yourself killed. You may get another chance later on. Trust me, I don't like them either, but right now there's not much out there in the way of options."

"What're you mumbling about?" said Karst. "Hey!"

"Nothing that concerns you, young lady," Alex replied, backing off. "Why don't you all head on home? I'll try to have something better set up for tomorrow."

The other three girls left quickly, obviously grateful to be gone, but Karst hesitated in the doorway. She turned back to the two foreigners. "You guys don't _really_ know why my sister went to Sol Sanctum, you know," she said derisively. "You can never _really_ know until you've seen Gaia Falls."

Before they could figure out an answer to that, she was gone.

* * *

"Sis, Felix wants to kill you," Menardi heard from the door as it closed.

"Took him long enough. So the old man finally spilled the beans?" she sighed, not looking up from her book.

"That's what he said," replied Karst, entering the room and hopping onto a comfy chair, where she then maneuvered so she was sitting upside-down with her head hanging off the seat. "He's out to get Saturos too, but I think he already knows better than that."

"One would hope so."

"It's gonna be hard getting him to help you, you know," she observed.

"I know," said Menardi. "But it's not as if we need him _today._ As it stands, I wouldn't be surprised if he chose death over helping us if we asked him right now."

Karst yawned and stretched. "Oh, I don't know about that. He really doesn't seem like the type."

At this Menardi chuckled and lowered her book. "And you never seemed like the type to judge by appearances. What's your point?"

"Are you insinuating I like him?" Karst protested, visibly annoyed.

"No, I'm insinuating you find him attractive. There's a difference."

"Well, you're dead wrong," she grunted, getting off the chair with a sort of backwards somersault. "They're all the same, those people…they don't know anything. _We're_ the ones living at the end of the world. They don't know what it's like…"

Menardi straightened up. "What did you just say?"

"I said they don't know what it's like, living here."

Suddenly, Menardi set down her book, swiftly crossed the room, and tightly embraced her sister, who yelped. "Karst, you've just given me a wonderful idea," she said. "Would you like to come along?"

"Come along where?" asked Karst.

* * *

"Gaia Falls," said Menardi to Alex and Felix a few minutes later. "Karst said you wanted to see it. I'm willing to show you the way. Coming?"

"Only if you're not," said Felix.

Menardi sighed. "Look, I am trying to give you some justification. Once you see it, you can begin to understand why we had to do what we did, and I think that may assuage your grief at least somewhat…"

Felix still kept his clenched fists tightly closed and did not respond. While waiting for his answer, Menardi turned to Alex. "You should see this too, Alex, in case you were having any second thoughts."

Alex nodded. "Of course. I'm very eager to find out what it is."

Just as he finished, Felix lifted his head from his chest and took a deep breath. "Fine," he said. "I'll come and see it."

It was even colder outside the town than in the streets, partially because the wind picked up the further north they walked. At first nothing was visible through the snowy haze, but as they walked, the red shape that Alex knew as the lighthouse began to come into view. Felix, however, didn't know it, and asked.

"No, that's not Gaia Falls," Menardi replied. "It's the Mars Lighthouse. You can see Gaia Falls _from_ the base of the lighthouse, so that's all the farther we're going."

_The Mars Lighthouse?_ Felix thought in disbelief. One of Vale's most gruesome legends involved a set of four lighthouses named for the elements, which supposedly still existed but which he, of course, had never seen, this being his first time away from home. These lighthouses had never been intended to guide ships; it was said that they held the keys to whatever terrible thing rested beneath Sol Sanctum.

Apparently, this was one of those lighthouses. His throat tightened, and he swallowed to clear it, but it didn't work.

Alex kept his eyes fixed upon the lighthouse as they approached it. _It looks almost the same as the one back home, but red,_ he thought. _I wonder if it's laid out the same inside, too._ More than once he'd explored the Mercury Lighthouse, trying futilely to figure out how it worked. He even knew the way to the top by heart, but not how to start the beacon… or at least, he hadn't known _then._ At any rate, his expeditions had come to an abrupt end when Mia sealed the place up behind his back.

Just thinking about it got on his nerves. _Gah, I _know _she did that just to annoy me._

By now the haze had thinned, but he noticed the sky was beginning to darken. He trudged faster to catch up to the two Proxians ahead. "Menardi! We should really start heading back, it's getting dark."

To his discomfort, Menardi laughed. Karst crossed her arms. "It's summer, moron! It's still at least six hours till dark," she remarked snidely.

"We're almost there," said Menardi. The base of the lighthouse, situated at the top of the next ridge, was clearly visible now in great detail. Two draconic statues guarded the entrance, rather than the two maidens that guarded the now-blocked door to the one in Imil, Alex noted. Felix really didn't know what to make of it.

Menardi and Karst didn't lead them to the entrance, though, but around the side, to the point where the land leveled off. The older sister finally stopped and motioned for the two men to catch up. "There," she said, pointing into the distance as they crested the hill. Both of them looked, and were stunned.

Below them, the plain stretched on for another mile or two before abruptly ending – and nothing started where it stopped. All that could be seen was a sudden, deep darkness. The wind was blowing harder than ever now… and come to think of it, it had been southerly to begin with, hadn't it? The snow was hardly touching them now; it seemed the gale was pulling it all northward before it ever had a chance to reach their shoulders.

Felix especially was deeply unsettled. The blackness was more like… _blankness._ The feeling it radiated was more like an utter _lack_ of feeling. Somehow he innately knew that what he was looking at was more, or less, than just a veil of darkness.

"What's out there?" said Alex, awed.

"Nothing," said Menardi.

"Absolutely nothing," repeated Karst.

Felix's legs finally refused to support him anymore and left the job to his knees. There was a part of him that wanted to know what this had to do with Sol Sanctum, but right now it was the last thing on his mind. _There's really nothing out there. This is where the world ends._ Why couldn't he handle the idea? He'd known there was someplace where the world ended, but had never imagined it like _this._ He was a controller of earth – anywhere there was earth, he was in charge. But beyond that cliff, there simply wasn't any more earth, and he felt utterly … helpless.

"See that?" said Karst, gesturing at a red line that started at the back of the lighthouse, ran through the snow and off the edge, and extended far into the blackness, fluttering in the wind. "That's the tape that measures how far away the Falls are. The end of the tape is where they _used_ to be, about thirteen years ago."

Alex nodded. "I see… so they're getting closer…"

"Yes," said Menardi. "Every day we lose a little ground. One day the decay will extend all the way to Prox, and it will swallow it." She pointed to the current point where the tape met the cliff. "We predict it'll reach the lighthouse within twenty years. And once it swallows the lighthouse… well…" She shrugged. "That's the end of the world."

Felix looked up at her, shocked. "What? That can't …"

"Do you know why this is happening, Felix?" she asked. "Why Gaia Falls is inching closer like this? It's because of what's hidden in Sol Sanctum."

"I … I don't understand…"

"Inside Sol Sanctum are four elemental stars, as we call them," she explained, holding up four fingers. "And around the world are four elemental lighthouses. Each star lights one of the beacons. Once all four are lit, though, that's when the real prize can be found."

"The real prize?" said Alex. He hadn't known there was something _after_ the lighting part.

"The real prize," Menardi replied, nodding. "Once they are lit, Sol Sanctum will open, and we can restore the land. But if we wait much longer…" She waved up at the lighthouse. "If this tower is consumed, then nothing can stop the decay. Prox will be destroyed, and after that, so will the rest of the world, I imagine."

Felix stared at her for a moment, then back out at the blankness that faced him. _The end… of the world…?_ It was like a waking nightmare, and he suddenly felt an intense desire to leave. He staggered back to his feet, hesitated a moment, and then turned and broke into a run down the hill. "What're you doing?" Karst shouted after him. "You'll just get lost!"

Alex was about to raise the snow and trip him (the only way he could think to stop him off the top of his head) when Felix tripped on his own and went sprawling across the snow. When he took a while to move from there, Alex ran to catch up with him; Menardi and Karst followed, but in no such hurry. "Are you all right?" said Alex when he'd gotten within earshot again.

By now Felix had sat up again, but didn't show any intention of standing. "You all right?" Alex repeated, drawing up next to him.

"I… I don't believe it. I won't believe it," Felix muttered, not looking at him.

Alex laid a calming hand on his shoulder, but he shook it off. "I don't know what to tell you, Felix," he said. "I don't like it either, but you saw it as clearly as I did."

"No. It's not true. It's not… I can't…" He tried to restrain a sob, but failed; a few more followed it.

"Are you _crying?"_ Karst moaned as she and her sister caught up with them. "Good Lord, a grown man—"

"Shut up, Karst," Alex and Menardi snapped in unison. Karst fell silent. "Come on, Felix, let's go on back," said Alex, pulling him standing. Felix didn't resist. Numbly, he followed them back to town, pressing through the cold south wind now at their faces.

* * *

_Thank you all for your reviews! They brighten my day._

_MK. This is a fanfic, not a walkthrough. Gamefaqs has some good walkthroughs._


	4. Ice in the Harbor

Sole Dorato: Lui Restaurarà

by Tafkae

_Chapter Three: Ice in the Harbor_

* * *

When they returned, Felix went straight to the inn in sort of a daze, and Alex didn't see him again until the following evening. Instead he spent the day striking up conversations with strangers, some of whom were more comfortable with him than others. (The average reaction he got was "smile and nod," which he figured was good for a first try.) In the afternoon he had the good fortune to find an injured dog and convince its owner to let him bring it to the girls' lesson, which actually led to some progress. It turned out that the girls actually _did _have some talent, especially the young twins working together; in fact, Karst was the only one who managed to burn the dog while trying to heal it.

Afterwards, Alex returned the dog to its grateful owner and started back toward the inn for some dinner; but on the way he finally ran into Felix in the street. He looked tired more than anything right now, and had obviously calmed down a _lot_ since yesterday. "Doing any better?" Alex asked him.

Felix nodded. "Yeah, kind of." He paused. "Do you know where Menardi is?"

Alex sighed. "Oh, not this again. You're not going to try to kill her, are you?"

"No, not this time," said Felix. "I've just got a lot of questions I need answered. Why they brought me here, why they're telling me all this."

"I don't suppose you'd believe me if I said it was all a gesture of apology."

"You're right, I wouldn't."

"Well, I haven't seen Menardi," said Alex with a shrug. "But I might be able to help somewhat…"

Felix sighed. "That's right, they've already explained everything to you."

"Well – yes. But that's because I already agreed to help them."

"Help them?"

Alex nodded. "Yes. Okay, it's all pretty simple once you know the facts. You know that they're trying to light the four lighthouses, right?"

"Right."

"And that will stop the world from falling to pieces."

"So they say."

"Well, each lighthouse corresponds with a type of Psynergy," said Alex. "And each lighthouse can only be lit by an adept of the corresponding element."

Felix's eyes widened as it dawned on him. "Are you saying they want me to light a lighthouse for them?"

"Yes."

"After all that – after what they did tears my family to shreds – after they half-destroy my hometown – they want me to help them destroy the entire world!"

"_Destroy_ it? No!" Alex protested, surprised. "We're _stopping_ it from being destroyed! You know that."

"Look—" Felix took a step toward him "—I don't know what they told you was in Sol Sanctum, but it's _not_ what they said. Do you know _why_ it's rigged to bring down the mountain if someone enters? What's sealed underneath the Sanctum is sealed for a _reason,_ Alex."

Alex paused. "And… what exactly is sealed there?"

"Something terrible," said Felix slowly. "A being of terrible power that will tear the world apart if it's released."

"…I don't like the sound of that at all."

"No." Felix shook his head. "So it is _damn_ bold to assume I'm going to help with something like that."

"But—" Alex hesitated. "Felix, all right, I'll be straightforward with you. I said they don't consider you irreplaceable. What I meant by that is, they've told me they'll kill you if you don't cooperate with them."

Felix tensed; somehow he knew they weren't above that.

"They'd kill you, go to Vale, kidnap another earth adept and force _him_ to light the lighthouse instead of you. And if he refused they'd kill _him._ And so on. And if the lighthouses just aren't lit? Then Gaia Falls eats the world, starting with Prox."

"But if Sol Sanctum opens, _everyone_ dies…"

"And if it doesn't, everyone dies anyway. So whatever happens, a lot of innocent lives could be lost." Alex put his hand to his chin and thought for a moment. "But," he continued at last, "I don't think we know for _sure_ that Sol Sanctum would destroy the world. It's a legend, isn't it?"

"It's a legend that's been passed down for almost a thousand years," said Felix.

Alex lowered his hand. "Did you ever play Pass It On as a kid? That game where everyone sits in a line and whispers a message from one end to the other?" Felix nodded. "Then you know the more people in the line, the more the message gets garbled by the time it reaches the end."

"In which case you're telling me everything anyone's ever told me about it has been false."

"No, not false, just… not necessarily completely true. Legends are essentially very long-lived rumors, after all. My point is, you _have_ to help. There's no avoiding it if you want to live."

Felix took a deep sigh, the type made for keeping one's temper in check. "I thought you said you didn't like Saturos and Menardi. Why do you want me to help them?"

Alex chuckled. "I'm not asking you to help them, Felix. I'm asking you to help _me."_

Felix shot him a questioning look. "What?"

"Heh. At any rate, you've got at least a year and a half to think it over. Menardi's said we won't go back to Vale until things have begun to settle down." He glanced off in the general direction of the dock.

Felix followed his gaze, his eyes landing on the ship moored there. "A year and a half…" It sounded like such an unbearably long time to wait. But… if the alternative was not going back at all, he could probably stick it out for a year and a half.

He closed his eyes. _Jenna… I'll be home soon. I promise._

* * *

It wasn't as soon as he thought.

The longest seventeen months of Felix's life went by almost without incident. The grief and longing he felt for his parents and Jenna ebbed over time, but never disappeared. As soon as Saturos lay down a specific date for their departure, Felix started counting the days. He never tried to steal the ship and leave on his own, though it crossed his mind more than once; not only was he mostly certain he would fail, but as the weeks passed, he realized more and more surely that the penalty would quite probably be his life. It wasn't worth it, and they had sworn to him that if he cooperated, he would see his sister again in just a few more months. Just a few more months.

Now the ice floes of the Northern Reaches were notoriously fickle; their sizes and positions could change drastically with very little warning whenever the temperature changed by more than a few degrees, making accurate mapping of the Reaches impossible. The harbormaster kept careful record of how close the floes came to the docks, but for about three months prior to the departure date he had been a little worried about just how close they were drifting. By twenty days prior, they were just barely far enough to be safe.

Ten days prior, the first spring thaw hit.

It was dark (as usual, since it was still only early spring) when Felix was awoken by someone pounding urgently on his door. "Get up! Ice in the harbor! Everyone to the harbor!"

Groggy, it took him a moment to realize the weight of the announcement. _Ice in the… _It dawned on him quickly. _Damn it! The ship!_ He hastily threw on some clothes and bolted for the port with everyone else.

The harbormaster rarely called "ice in the harbor," simply because there was _always_ ice in the harbor. The warning was only used to indicate that the ice was endangering something, and right now there were only two things to endanger: the docks, and the ship.

A fairly sizeable crowd was gathered at the dock and on deck as Felix approached. The moonlight made the stark white figure of the ice shelf plainly visible, butted right up to the ship, but it was impossible to tell whether or not they were actually in contact. He hurried ahead, weaved through the assembled townspeople awkwardly awaiting direction of any kind, and scaled the ladder to the deck two rungs at a time. Across from him Alex's bright blue hair stood out from the others where he peered over the opposite railing. Felix joined him; Alex didn't acknowledge it, but kept looking. "No, I think we've got… about a foot of clearance on either side," he said at last, apparently satisfied.

Felix peered over the rail. The ice was moving very fast for ice, because he could tell with absolute certainty that it was moving. "Is two feet enough?" he asked anxiously.

Menardi appeared on Alex's other side. "How long do we have?" she said impatiently.

"I give it five to seven minutes before it hits us, and another few before we'd be pinned to the dock. But that's not going to happen," said Alex. "The ice situation's better on the other side of the pier. Five minutes and a foot of clearance should be plenty to move the ship out of harm's way." He gestured at the Proxians in general. "Someone get the engine running," he ordered. "Then take us out. Felix and I will try to hold it back, that should buy us some time, and maybe even a margin of error."

A few people went below deck to start the ship's engine. Felix looked quizzically at Alex. "You're the water adept, Alex, I can't—"

"Nonsense," said Alex, smiling. "Your specialty is moving things, and ice is a thing. No worries." He turned to the ice and closed his eyes in concentration. "Besides, we need all the help we can get."

Felix paused, then nodded and joined him. The ice didn't _want_ to yield to him; it strained against his touch like an unruly child. He increased his focus.

A minute later they felt a sudden pulse as the Psynergy-fueled ship came to life, and shortly after that a jolt as it stirred and began to move. Alex nodded. "Good. No problems. We'll be in the clear soon."

Felix didn't like the tone of worry in his friend's voice. He turned his attention back to the floe and tried more fervently to push it back, but it did little more good than it had already been doing. "Steady," Alex cautioned him.

The ship was about half clear of the ice when something went wrong. Felix felt a sudden give in the ice and exploited it, pushing as hard as he could in that one spot. Alex jumped and turned to him, shouting "Felix, don't!" – but it was too late.

With a terrible CRACK, the massive ice shelf buckled. Its corner moved abruptly and collided dead-center with the hull. The deck shook from the impact, knocking everyone off-balance and sending most of them sprawling, including Alex and Felix. Alex recovered more quickly, scrambling to his feet and back to the railing at breakneck speed. Below him it was obvious the ice had penetrated deep into the belly of the ship, and voices carried out through the hole, shouting indistinct curses.

Horrified, he turned back to the others on deck. Everyone was looking at _him_ expectantly. He realized suddenly that they were looking to him for instructions… problem being, he didn't have the slightest idea what to do.

Before he could say anything, though, the ship jolted again, this time from the other side of the hull. No one needed to look to know that they'd hit the dock.

"We're impaled on both sides!" one of the Proxians shouted.

"—taking on water! What the hell are you _doing_ up here!" shouted an angry Saturos, emerging from below deck.

"Saturos," said Alex. "How's the damage?"

"Bad, the ice is a good two and a half feet in. Haven't seen the _second_ breach."

"Is the engine still working?"

"Well, it hasn't stopped."

Alex nodded, trying to think. "Break off the ice inside the hull and keep moving."

"What, and just leave it in the ship?" Saturos protested.

"We can drain it later, but not if we're pinned like this. How bad's the dock?" he called to Felix at the other side of the deck as Saturos reluctantly carried the message back downstairs.

"The pier took more damage than the hull," Felix reported.

"Okay, we can take our chances with that side," said Alex, coming over to see for himself. "Yeah, that's definitely probably all right." He looked up at Felix. "Don't worry about it. We'll be moving again in a second."

Felix nodded. "I… yeah."

For the next few minutes after the ship shuddered back into motion, a hushed atmosphere hung over the deck as they continued to inch backwards, scraping against the already half-ruined dock. Once out, though, it was simple to steer the ship to the other side; the crew breathed a collective sigh of relief when they could finally drop anchor.

Alex looked especially pleased. "Glad that's over with," he said, glancing at Felix. "What's wrong?"

Felix shook his head gloomily. "This is my fault."

"No!" said Alex. "… Well, yes, actually, it is. But it's all right. We'll be delayed a few weeks for repairs, of course, but trying to set out in the spring was a pretty stupid idea in the first place. I'll bet anything the Reaches aren't even navigable this time of year."

Felix didn't feel like telling him he was being no help. He wouldn't have gotten a chance to anyway, though, because just then a green-skinned man emerged from below deck and shouted, "Alex! Get down here and bail!"

Alex grimaced. "I'm coming!" he shouted. Before he went downstairs, though, he patted Felix's shoulder and smiled. "Pointing fingers never helps anything. You've just got to take it from where you are. Those barrels that got knocked over, for instance." He pointed at said barrels, then hurried to the cabin where the stairs were.

As he disappeared below deck, Felix let out an annoyed sigh. _Alex… why is it all your good intentions are so _aggravating

* * *

Following the accident, Alex was promptly assigned to harbor duty, since he was best able to keep the ice away from the ship and avoid further damage. However, Psynergy-strong though he was, his power was completely inadequate when faced with the twenty-foot-high wall of ice encroaching on the entrance to the natural cove. Just a few days into repairs, it became clear that they would have all the time in the world to finish patching up the ship.

"You can't _stop_ it?" Felix demanded of his friend. From the end of the pier, where they stood, the harbor entrance was obviously going to be too narrow to pass through within a matter of days, long before the ship would be ready to set sail.

Alex made no response but to sigh.

Unsatisfied, Felix continued. "You're a water adept! You're supposed to be able to hold off things like this."

Alex closed his eyes and spoke softly, as if trying to calm a child. "You're an earth adept. Can you stop the decay at Gaia Falls?"

Felix tried to think of a retort, but none came.

"Believe me, Felix, I would stop it if I could, but there's just no avoiding it. We're going to have to let it run its course."

"But how long will it take to just run its course?"

Alex shrugged. "Hard to say. Several months at least. When winter rolls around it'll be hard as rock, and I might be able to work at cutting down the time somewhat then. Right now, though, unseasonably warm as it's been, it'd be too dangerous to even try."

Felix remained on edge. "We've been trapped here for almost a year and a half, Alex. I have been separated from what's left of my family for almost eighteen months and I _don't_ want to wait any longer!"

"Look, Felix, we don't have much of a choice—"

"What makes you so _calm_ about it? You've got a family too, don't you? I'd have thought _you_ of all people would understand!"

A flicker of dismay appeared in Alex's face. After a moment of taut silence, he sighed and shook his head. "Okay. Let me tell you something, Felix. I'm jealous of you."

Felix blinked, startled. "Jealous?"

Alex nodded. "From all you've told me about her, it sounds as if your sister would really be happy to see you again." He looked down at his reflection in the cold water of the harbor. "Mine… if I had just one brass coin for every time she told me to leave home and never come back, I'd be the richest man alive."

In all honesty, Felix had no idea what to say to that. "I'm … sorry," he replied after a while.

"No, don't be," said Alex quickly. "People disagree about things, so it shouldn't be all that much sadder when the people who disagree happen to be family. I just… I'm sorry I haven't been treating this with as much urgency as you have, but it's hard to hurry when what you're going back to never wants to see you again." He chuckled and sat down on the dock.

There were no words to describe Felix's awkwardness at that moment. Here he had been going on for _a year and a half_ about how much he missed Jenna, and… it suddenly occurred to him that Alex had never talked about his own sister very much. In fact, Felix didn't even remember her name, or if his friend had mentioned it at all. Now he knew why.

"I… I'm sorry, Alex. I'm really sorry."

Alex recognized the difference between that apology and the one before it, and nodded. "Don't worry about it. You didn't know."

Too ashamed to reply, Felix waited for a moment in silence. Finally, he turned and walked back to the shore. Alex sat on the dock and stared out at the cold ice wall blocking the way home.

_I wonder how much you've grown… Mia._

* * *

_You know we were all wondering it. Why **three freaking years**? Now we know._

_Thanks for your great reviews! It's good to see that so many smart people frequent this section… much better than the Yugioh trendwhores…_

_Here's a happy birthday shout-out to Xanda! Happy 17th._


	5. Vale

Sole Dorato: Lui Restaurarà

by Tafkae

_Chapter Four: Vale_

* * *

The next days grew into weeks, and the weeks became months; and yet, somehow much more quickly than before the harbor had been blocked, another eighteen months passed by. It didn't seem like nearly that long, but it was still a relief when one day, a resounding _CRACK_ that echoed from one end of Prox to the other was discovered to be the ice shelf separating from the outer wall of the cove. The second it became clear that they would be able to maneuver the ship out, Saturos ordered that it be stocked and make way as soon as possible. 

They left port on a crisp summer morning; the sky actually _wasn't_ overcast for a change, and everyone agreed that was a good sign. Felix stood at the prow, blank-faced, gazing out over the ice-filled waters of the Northern Reaches and the barely visible mountain peak on the horizon beyond them. To be honest, Alex was becoming worried for him. He joined his friend at the dragon's-head ornament adorning the bow. "Everything all right? I would have thought you'd be bursting with excitement now that you're going home."

"I just realized," said Felix. "I'm twenty-two."

Alex raised his eyebrows and nodded in agreement. "I suppose you are, aren't you."

Felix sighed, then chuckled. "It's kind of silly, isn't it? I _am_ going home, for the first time in three years, and I'm not even thinking about Jenna being fifteen, or how much things must have changed… all I can think about is that I'm twenty-two years old."

Alex shook his head. "That's not silly at all, my friend. In fact, I was just at this very moment contemplating how very twenty-three I am."

They paused and stared at each other for a moment, then Felix started to snicker, and Alex started giggling, and within moments they were both laughing so hard they had to hold the boat railing for support.

Two days later, the ship finally said goodbye to the last iceberg of the Reaches. "We're making better time than we did on the first expedition," Saturos remarked at some point, and that fact seemed to keep him in a good humor for the remainder of their sea voyage. It was the morning of the fourth day when they dropped anchor in a small, well-hidden cove below the cliffs that lined the western coast of Angara.

Alex gazed up at them curiously, shading his eyes from the sun with one hand. "That's got to be at least two hundred feet up," he observed. "Isn't there any other place we can put in?"

Saturos shook his head. "No. The coastline is nothing but cliffs until you hit Gondowan, and I'd rather climb two hundred feet than walk two hundred miles, thank you." He took a length of rope from where it lay curled up on the deck as he spoke. "I'll take the lead line."

Menardi sighed. "Saturos, you've forgotten already?"

Saturos glanced over and saw her gesturing at Felix. "Right." He handed the lines to Felix, who accepted them a little reluctantly. "You've got a decent range, don't you, kid?"

Felix's expression changed from uncertainty to annoyance; he knew for a fact Saturos was only about six years older than he was. After a moment he shrugged it off and weighed the ropes in his hands; both of them had a strong grappling hook firmly tied to one end. He judged the cliff for a moment, and then let the first line fly, propelled by his Psynergy. It soared over the precipice and caught turf. He then did the same for the second hook, and when it had touched, tugged firmly on both to check that they were secure. They were. "Let's go," he said.

The four raiders scaled the cliff almost silently, all of them more focused on their grip on the rope than on any kind of conversation. A few times Alex's shaky footing caused them some minor scares (especially Felix, who was below him on the rope), but overall they reached the top of the cliffs without incident. Alex and Saturos worked to wind up the ropes and hide them away once everyone was safely on land.

Felix's eyes were elsewhere, on the familiar grey peak of Mount Aleph and, dwarfed by comparison beneath it, the smooth, white spire of Sol Sanctum, half-covered in bright green moss. He couldn't see Vale itself over the trees that separated him from it, but he knew it was there, and the thought made his heart beat faster.

"We're making great time. If we move quickly, we should be able to reach the foot of the volcano by at least sunset," said Menardi firmly. "Pick your feet up."

The others nodded their assent, and all four disappeared into the forest as quietly as they had climbed the craggy rocks before it.

* * *

"But you _can't_ leave," Isaac protested. "We'll be so bored when you're gone." 

Just past the outskirts of Vale proper was a small cottage, which was home to a somewhat hermitic old man from the distant city of Tolbi. Kraden was the only person living on the slopes of Mount Aleph who had not grown up there, and as he had lived there for almost twenty-five years already, Isaac, Garet, and Jenna had only a very rough idea of why he was allowed to stay without even being an adept. The rest of the townspeople didn't seem to mind his being there.

Kraden's cottage was even more cramped than it appeared from the outside when all his belongings were taken into account. The wealth of books, papers, and oddities from all corners of the world made it feel like a closet already, and the presence of four people trying to work around the mess and pack it into boxes didn't help the situation.

At one of the several desks, Kraden enthusiastically rolled up parchment after parchment and tossed them, along with the occasional knick-knack, in the general direction of his three guests. One of them usually caught the items and they packed them as best they could into a large wooden crate he'd had brought up the night before. They hadn't known then why he wanted it, or why he had asked Stephen earlier this morning for passage to the inconveniently southward city of Kalay.

"I'm very sorry I must simply up and pack my bags like this, children," the old man sighed as he tied up another bundle of parchment. "It's that I've made a critical breakthrough in my research, and I must return to Tolbi to further evaluate my findings. The library, my colleagues, you know." He tossed the bundle over his shoulder and began on another.

"I'll miss your stories, Kraden," said Jenna, catching it with her hands and lowering it into the crate.

"Yes, yes, and I'll miss things as well," said Kraden absently, though he didn't seem to mean it. "Let's see, I can probably get as far as Kalay by nightfall with fast horses… yes, that'll work very well…"

The scholar continued to mutter indistinctly to himself as his young friends packed for him. Eventually Isaac's curiosity overwhelmed him. "What is it you found out?" he asked.

"_Why,_ my boy!" Kraden answered triumphantly, glancing back over his shoulder. "I'm beginning to really understand what led the great powers to hide the alchemical element for a thousand years. But I oughtn't divulge too much yet, not before I can be more certain that my findings are consistent with the facts. Let it be known, though—" he shook a quill pen in emphasis "—I'll return with groundbreaking news one way or the other, that is a fact."

"When'll you be back?" Garet asked half an hour later as he and Isaac levitated the heavy crate into Stephen's cart.

Kraden shrugged. "I can't say for sure, son. Won't be more than a few months, I'd wager. Wish I didn't have to leave, but you know how important this research is and all that."

"Yeah, we know. It could change the world."

"Indeed it could. Jenna—"

She looked up at him.

"Your tea is remarkable. You'll have to make me some when I come back."

"Aye aye, Cap'n," said Jenna with a fake salute and a fond smile.

The three friends stood at the gate and waved until they figured the cart bearing Kraden was far enough away that he probably couldn't see them clearly anymore. Garet was first to lower his hand and heave a sigh. "Well, _now_ what?" he asked.

Vale didn't have much of a nightlife. Actually, it was small enough to lack a great deal of day-life either, especially for a few fifteen-year-olds who had already finished their chores. They flopped down at the top of the terrace outside Isaac's house and watched the clouds for a painfully long time, pointing out the shapes of faces and animals.

After about an hour of this, Isaac sat up and stretched. "Unnnh. I'm gonna go rearrange your sister's garden, Garet."

Garet got quickly to his feet, grinning. "Sounds like a plan. Count me in!" He turned to Jenna. "You coming, Jenna?"

Jenna thought for a second, then shook her head. "Nah, if I wanted Kay to yell at me I'd just ask her how much she weighs."

Isaac and Garet laughed. "Okay, suit yourself," said Garet. "You just gonna hang out here till we get back?"

Jenna propped herself up on her elbows. "Nah… I don't know. Maybe I'll go to the river and visit with Felix or something."

The boys hushed; Isaac nodded solemnly. "All right. I'll come get you when we're done, okay?"

"See you later, you good-for-nothings," she chuckled, dismissing them with her hand. Her friends slid quietly down the grassy slope below them and vanished down the well-trodden path toward Garet's house.

Sighing, Jenna pushed herself to her feet and brushed the grass out of her cerise hair. Felix was dead; he had been washed out to sea three years ago. She had marked the spot on the riverbank closest to where she had last seen him with a small wooden marker painted white. His name was written shakily at the top by the hand of a distraught twelve-year-old, but the flowers at the base were neat and fresh.

She visited this marker fairly frequently. It wasn't that she didn't visit her parents' graves – she made a point of keeping fresh their flowers, too. But she never said a word to her parents anymore. Them, she had _seen_ dead, and the dead were notoriously bad listeners.

But Felix was dead, too, so even Jenna wasn't sure why she talked to him.

Her feet knew the way to the river on their own, so she let them take her along.

* * *

It was mid-afternoon when the town itself finally came into view. It was built on a steep part of the hill where the slope had been cut into stair-like terraces, though stairs were also cut into the terraces periodically. Felix knew that many of the village's youth didn't bother with the stairs, and instead just climbed up or down the banks of earth. On the flat ground the terraces provided, white-walled cottages with thatched roofs stood out against the grass and soil on which they were built. 

Saturos' company came to a stop in a thickly wooded glade near the western boundary of the village. The area around the mountain wasn't particularly dense with trees, but there were enough of them that it wouldn't be hard to stay under cover while moving. Saturos kicked a thick fallen branch aside and sat down on a lichen-covered boulder. "We'll stay here till closer to sunset," he said decisively. "It'll be easier to skirt the town once everyone's gone indoors for the night."

"And no wandering off," Menardi added in a more condescending tone than was necessary.

Felix turned abruptly. "But what about—"

"Your little sister?" Saturos groaned. "I am sick and tired of your feeble whining, Felix."

"You said I could see her," said Felix dangerously.

"And you can, if you can see her from _here,"_ Saturos retorted. "At the very _best,_ she would ask questions and then pass your answers on to everyone in town. When I said this mission was to be conducted in absolute stealth, I _did_ mean _absolute stealth."_

Felix's fists clenched. "You never said anything like that!"

"No, _you_ just weren't _listening,"_ Saturos hissed.

"You've just been stringing me along this whole time, haven't you? You were never going to let me see her at all, were you, you damned _liar?"_

"_Do NOT call me a LIAR!"_ roared Saturos, jumping to his feet. The sun glinted on the polished metal of his sword as it darted halfway from its sheath.

Felix's hand flew to the hilt of his own sword, but before he could draw it, Alex forced himself between the antagonists and held them apart. "Hey, hey, stop this nonsense _now!_ Remember what we're doing here!"

After a tense moment, Felix withdrew his hand from his weapon. Saturos straightened up and returned his to its scabbard. "Too much noise anyway," he scoffed. "We can_not_ be detected if we're going to succeed. No more close calls." With that he returned to his boulder.

Felix reluctantly sat down on the opposite side of the glade, looking between the trees at the town – his home – laid out below them. From here he could see part of the river and the thick copse that surrounded it. He watched the small waterfall for a few minutes, and as he did, an idea began to form in his head.

Alex became bored quickly and climbed into one of the trees as far as the third lowest branch. Since it was thick enough, he propped himself on it against the trunk and stared up at the hypnotic patterns of light between the breeze-blown leaves. Within five minutes he had dozed off.

It was after about an hour of waiting that Felix finally stood up and announced, "I'm going to go refill my canteen. I'll be right back."

"See that you are," said Menardi absently over the top of the book she'd brought. Quietly, Felix edged past the napping Saturos and darted across the few yards of open grass between their hiding place and the thick layer of trees edging the river.

The echo of the rushing water grew louder as he pushed through the underbrush, assuring him that he was going in the right direction. At the same time, though, there was something about the sound that made his skin crawl. The closer he came to the water, the more his hands shook without his consent. After a few somewhat distressing minutes, he was near enough to be able to see the sun glinting off the shifting surface of the water, and the foam carried downstream from the rapids ten yards north.

His throat clenched as a sudden flood of memories washed over him. The rain falling into his eyes. The frigid water rushing past his half-numb skin. His father's hand reaching out to him, everyone calling his name. Hold on, Felix. Someone get help. Rocks tumbling over the falls. Jenna's anguished scream from the shore.

Blood in the water.

He shook his head and took a deep, deliberate breath. _No. It's just the river. I grew up here._ He tried to call to mind any fond memory of the swirling waters, maybe a swimming outing – he knew they'd happened when he was younger – but none would come to mind. The river was inextricable from the storm now; one just led back to the other. He closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing. He had almost managed to settle himself when he heard an all-too-familiar voice.

"Hi, Felix."

Felix whirled around, trying to pinpoint the sound. It was coming from the riverside, he realized. Had someone seen him? He pressed through the trees and was about to step out into the open by the river when he saw who had been speaking. A young scarlet-haired girl knelt at the bank – he recognized her instantly and drew back into the cover of the foliage.

"Jenna," he whispered.

Jenna pulled out a small handful of daisies and set them at the foot of a wooden marker at the water's edge – an impromptu grave marker, he suddenly realized. _That's right… as far as she knows, this is where I…_

"So… it'll be three years next week, won't it," said Jenna absently to the marker. "But you know, for all I talk about stuff and all, you really haven't missed much. You wouldn't be_lieve_ how boring it's been lately. Isaac and Garet can't think of anything better to do than get into trouble – although I guess that's not _much_ of a change. But now that Kraden left, I can't even listen to his old stories to pass the time. See, now, if _you_ were here we could … play cards or … oh, I don't know, all that stuff Garet's too thick to care about." She let out a halfhearted laugh. "You know, it's… it's just not the same without you."

It broke Felix's heart to hear her. Never before had he wanted to break down and embrace her as strongly as he did now. "Jenna…"

He spoke louder than he'd meant to. Jenna jumped and whirled in his direction. "Who's there?" she shouted. There was no reply. She glanced around, confused.

"Jenna!"

That time, the voice wasn't Felix's. Jenna turned to the other direction as Isaac appeared from the footpath that led to the upstream bridge, out of breath. "Isaac? What is it? What's wrong?"

Isaac took a second to catch his breath enough to speak. "Do you remember… when I told you… about those people… we met after the storm?"

Jenna nodded. "You mean when you got beaten up by those blue guys, right?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

_Blue… it might have been Saturos?_ Felix thought incredulously.

Isaac pointed back the way he'd come. "We were coming back and – we saw them again. Come on, Garet's keeping an eye on them."

"They came back?" said Jenna, surprised.

"Yeah. Saw them with my own eyes. And I'll bet a hundred to one that they're here for the same reason as last time."

"This is bad. What're we going to do?"

Isaac looked both ways, as if afraid someone in authority was watching. Then he leaned toward her a little. "Okay, I've got a hunch that we'll get ourselves killed if we try to fight them again. They're going to go back to Sol Sanctum and try to get the elemental stars, right? But they can't _take_ them if they're not _there_."

Jenna blinked. "What are you saying?"

"They're just waiting around. Probably they're going to try and do it under cover of darkness. So we're going to get there first and get the stars for safekeeping."

Jenna's eyes went wide, and she shoved him away. "What are you, stupid? We can't go up to Sol Sanctum!"

"Yeah, yeah, it's not allowed, I know. But it's not allowed for _them_ either, and that's not going to stop them! They don't care about our rules. So to beat them we're going to have to break a few rules ourselves."

"Tell the mayor!"

"He doesn't believe a word I say, Jenna!" Isaac laid a hand on her shoulder, desperation in his eyes. "Trust me, we _have_ to do this ourselves. There's no other way. And we need your help. Come on."

Jenna paused, then sighed and nodded. "All right."

Felix remained where he was, dumbfounded, as they disappeared down the path from which Isaac had come. _How did he know what we were here for?_

"Felix! _Felix!"_

He turned quickly to see Alex there, clambering toward him through the underbrush. "Hey, mind your voice! Everybody in Vale knows my name, don't go hollering it all over town," he whispered harshly.

"Sorry," said Alex, catching his breath. "Okay, to sum up: you ran off, Saturos is mad, please come back _quickly."_

"But – but – Isaac's on to us," Felix stuttered.

"Who?"

"I – he's one of Jenna's friends."

"You didn't _tell_ them!"

"No, of course I didn't!"

"Then what do you mean 'he's on to us'?"

"It's – never mind. We just have to tell Saturos," said Felix, running back in the direction of the grove.

* * *

"_Those_ kids?" exclaimed Saturos. "Those kids from three years ag- shit! I didn't think they'd overheard _that_ much." 

"This is bad," said Menardi, biting her thumbnail.

"We should head them off. Can't we?" said Alex. "We probably know the way better than they do."

Saturos nodded. "We're going to have to. Those kids don't know what they're getting themselves involved in." He stood and dusted himself off. "If they get there before we do, there's a good chance they'll blow themselves and the mountain to kingdom come. We don't have another three years to waste." He strode off and beckoned for them to follow. "Let's go."

The road to Sol Sanctum was short from where they were, and blocked off even less strictly than they'd expected. A single empty building, a short fence, and a good amount of shrubbery were all that obstructed the path. The shrubbery was slightly crushed in three separate places, and three different pairs of footprints led away down the dirt path. Saturos cursed and sped up, leaping the fence without stopping; the others hurried to match his pace.

Sol Sanctum came into view shortly. It looked fairly innocuous on the outside. The tallest tower was all that was visible from a distance, but there were two others as well, a half and a third the height of the central one, respectively; all three were rounded at the top. The structure carried centuries' worth of moss and ivy, but the white masonry still dominated its overall appearance. A single door was set unobtrusively in the front of the central tower; when they arrived, that door was already open. All four of them gazed through it, but none were willing to enter right at that instant.

"We should have killed them when we had the chance," Menardi said sharply. "Made a clean job of it."

"Somehow I don't think spilling the blood of children qualifies as a clean job," said Alex.

Saturos gestured at him and at Felix. "You two keep watch here, but don't be seen. Menardi and I will follow the children."

"Don't hurt them," Felix demanded.

Saturos rolled his eyes. Menardi nodded patronizingly, smiled, and said, "Fine, if we can avoid it." Then they disappeared into the dark interior of the sanctum, leaving Alex and Felix out in the sun.

* * *

_Huzzah, we're through with the boring stuff. Trust me, the next chapter is a lot cooler than this one.  
That's right. It's already written but it's going to be your Christmas present. Hee._

_Those who review get my love but not in that way, sorry._

_Edit: I've been informed that Camelot says Felix is 18…  
But if it was really a big deal how old he is, wouldn't they have mentioned something about it in the game?_


	6. Sol Sanctum

Sole Dorato: Lui Restaurarà

by Tafkae

_Chapter Five: Sol Sanctum_

* * *

Jenna glanced behind her. "What was that?" she asked nervously.

"I don't hear anything," said Isaac.

"A scraping noise."

"It's your imagination."

Apart from that exchange, the three teenagers stalked silently through the dark hallways of Sol Sanctum, their way lit only by the eerie phosphorescent glow of the stone itself. Here and there were rooms jutting off from the main corridor, but something about the spiked walls in one of the first rooms had discouraged them from entering any of the others. The hallway changed directions every so often, but one thing was unmistakable: they were always traveling slightly downhill. The air became colder and smelled more earthy the further they went, too, indicating that they were progressing deeper and deeper underground.

"I hope this tunnel isn't much longer," said Garet eventually. "This place really gives me the creeps, guys."

"You're not the only one," Jenna replied with a shudder.

"Yeah, me too, but we have to do this," said Isaac. A cold breeze was blowing from ahead of them now. Somehow it felt like that meant they were close.

As they turned the next corner, the hallway abruptly ended in a large room that starkly contrasted everything they had seen so far. The ceiling was high and vaulted, and ornate abstract carvings decorated its luminescent surface; where the wall met it, the carvings suddenly turned into heavily stylized relief images of people, telling a story that apparently started at one corner of the room and wound its way around, though it was impossible to tell at a glance what that story was. Four nearly identical statues of a beautiful maiden stood in niches in the four corners of the room, each holding a long, stone scroll.

On the far wall from the hallway was a filled-in doorway, which was the first thing Isaac investigated. The young earth adept ran his fingers over the delicate foreign letters inscribed on the jamb and lintel. "This has to be the way in," he decided aloud.

Garet stood beside him, looking quizzically at the door. "But it's solid rock." He tapped the inside of the door with the toe of his boot. "Can either of you read that stuff around it?"

Jenna was leaning over the scroll of the maiden to the right of the door, but now turned her attention to the letters around the doorframe instead. "Are you sure those are even words?" she asked after a moment's observation.

"I don't know. That's what they look like," said Isaac, abandoning them for the moment to look at the statue Jenna had been at a moment ago.

Jenna eyed the markings quizzically, following them around the door with her eyes. She stopped at the top as she noticed something that had escaped her eyes at first glance. In relief over the door was the head of another woman, like those of the four statues. But this one was different; a pair of hands covered her eyes. Something about it looked a little off to Jenna, and she held up her hands in comparison, then covered her own eyes, then held up her hands again. "What're you doing?" said Garet after a moment.

"That's it, her hands are on backwards," said Jenna. "See? The thumbs are on the inside, but they'd be on the outside if she was covering her own eyes."

"Maybe someone else is covering them," said Isaac.

"That's what I was thinking," Jenna agreed. Then a hunch struck her. "Hmm… I wonder." She approached one of the maiden statues, the one to the left of the door. It was a couple feet taller than her, so she had to reach far up to lay her hands on its eyes.

The instant she did, something happened. A clear voice sounded, not in her ears, but resonating in her very _skull._ What she heard of its message echoed with strange sounds, as if it were speaking in several languages at once. "_Greetings, truth-seeker._ _Are you prepared for—"_

That was all the more she heard. She let out a shriek and tore herself away from the statue, almost falling backwards in her haste. Garet caught and steadied her. "What happened? Are you all right?" said Isaac.

"It _talks!"_ shouted Jenna, pointing a quivering hand at the statue. "It _talked_ in my _head!_ Is it supposed to be able to do that?" she added timidly as Isaac crossed over to the statue.

"What'd you do? Just cover its eyes?" he asked.

Jenna nodded. "Be careful."

Isaac returned the nod, faced the sculpture, and laid his hands over its eyes. He jumped at first, then calmed himself, listening to what the statue had to say. After a few tense seconds, he put his hands down and turned back to his friends. "It's a riddle."

"What'd it say?" asked Garet.

Isaac was apparently already formulating an answer as he quoted the message. "'Hear thee, friend, and listen well in thine ears; what lies within and what shines above?'"

Garet looked upward at the vaulted roof. "The ceiling's more _glowing_ than _shining,_ really," he observed.

"What lies within…" Jenna pondered the question, tossing it back and forth in her mind. "What lies within _what?"_

"I don't know. Let's try the second part. What shines above?" tried Isaac.

"Sun, moon, and stars," said Garet.

Isaac snapped his fingers. "Stars! What lies within the inner sanctum are the elemental stars, and then there's the regular stars at night. The answer is the stars."

A brighter glow rippled across the room with a slight hum and concentrated itself in one of the glyphs that adorned the four corners of the doorframe. The three friends looked at each other triumphantly, and Isaac went and covered the eyes of the statue to the door's right.

"'Hear thee, friend, and listen well in thine ears; he died by the sword he made of his brother,'" he repeated.

Jenna's eyes lit up. "I remember this! Kraden told a story about it once. Kane the Sinner, the first alchemist."

Another pulse crossed the walls and gathered in the second corner of the door. "Right answer," said Isaac, impressed, and went to the third statue.

"'Hear thee friend, yadda yadda; the world of heaven on earth.'"

This one was harder, and no one spoke for a while. Finally, Garet remarked, "Man, I wish I'd bothered with those geography lessons now."

"Wouldn't it be down south?" said Jenna.

Garet shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just gonna take a stab at it and say—"

"_GARET, DON'T!"_ Isaac yelled. Garet shut his mouth instantly. "You moron, do you have any idea what'll happen if we guess _wrong?"_

Garet shook his head mutely.

"Neither do I," said Isaac. "But I don't want to find out."

"But we don't _know_ the right answer," said Jenna.

Isaac thought for a second. "Actually, we just might. That's the thing. I'm starting to think it's a trick question." He paused a second to organize his idea. "The world of heaven on earth… a perfect world… but there isn't any such thing. There's no answer."

Garet opened his mouth to denounce his friend's pessimistic remark, but as he did, there was a third pulse and the third corner of the door lit up. They all stared at it for a second.

"That's depressing," said Jenna at last.

"Three out of four, guys," said Garet, grinning.

Isaac put his hands over the eyes of the final statue. This time he didn't say anything, though, even after he had lowered his hands and backed away. "What is it? What's wrong?" said Jenna worriedly.

Isaac swallowed. "I think … you'd better see it for yourselves."

Jenna glanced at Garet, and he gestured that she should go first. She nodded and laid her hands on the statue.

Instantly she felt herself being roughly pulled upwards, though her senses still told her that her feet were planted firmly on the ground. A wind that wasn't there whipped at her face, and she squinted to see beyond it. The echoing voice rang in her mind again. "_Hear thee, friend, and listen well in thy heart."_

She found herself standing in a barren plain, with dark clouds obscuring the sky. Rain pounded against her, and the gale grew even stronger. She heard the deafening _CRACK_ of lightning close by. "_Storms you will suffer,"_ said the voice, somehow audible above the unholy din.

Now the wind carried a piercing scream of utter, terrible anguish that penetrated her eardrums and sent a shudder through her bones. "_Madness appears in your eyes,"_ the voice continued.

"No," said Jenna, her own voice quivering.

A ring of flames erupted around her. Panicked, she whirled to seek an escape, but apart from the small circle in which she stood, everything was burning. The voice spoke again: "_Trial, pain, and death will follow you on the path to restoration!"_

Then, as suddenly as it had all started, the flames died, the storm cleared, the noise ceased, and within seconds, the sun had broken the horizon, and rose into the clear, azure sky. "_But fear not,"_ said the voice, "_in the light of the golden sun there is rebirth."_

Jenna blinked a few times, and then she was back in Sol Sanctum, standing before the statue with her hands over its eyes. The voice spoke one last, quiet phrase. "_Do you accept this?"_

Slowly she withdrew her hands and stepped back, shaken. As Garet went up to repeat what she had just done, she exchanged a look with Isaac. "I don't know about this, Isaac."

Isaac took a deep breath. "No. It's a riddle. It's a test, like all the others. It's just something we have to get past before we can enter. That's all it is."

He didn't sound convinced. Jenna suddenly found herself wondering if he had seen the same things she had.

Half a minute later, Garet broke away from the statue and turned to face them a little dazedly. "Well? Do we accept this thing or… what?" he asked, waving at the statue.

They stood in silence for a while. Finally, Isaac nodded. "Yes. We accept."

A fourth pulse lit up the final corner of the doorframe. With a low hum, at the very bottom edge of their hearing, the blue glow from the corners spread through the lettering on the frame, and from there into the stone blocking the way. It converged in the middle with a bright flash, and when the three looked again, the stone had taken on the appearance of luminescent water, rippling hypnotically.

Experimentally, Garet approached it and touched his hand to it, then withdrew quickly when it passed through. "I guess we go through that?" he asked.

"You first," said Jenna with a scowl.

One by one, Garet, then Isaac, and finally Jenna walked through the shimmering portal and disappeared.

* * *

Outside Sol Sanctum, Felix was struck with a sudden realization.

"What am I _doing?"_ he exclaimed out of the blue, disgusted with himself. "Jenna is _inside_ that building, and Saturos is going after her!" He sprang up from beside the wall and made for the door.

By instinct, Alex jumped up at the same time out of surprise. "Your sister's with them?"

Felix nodded. "And Saturos doesn't care if he accidentally-on-purpose hurts her. Or worse."

"Aren't we supposed to keep watch?"

"Keep watch against _what?_ No one comes up here." He shook his head. "You can stay and keep the chipmunks out if you want. I'm going after them."

"You'd leave me all alone against those awful chipmunks? I'd rather take my chances inside," said Alex half-jokingly. "Let's go." He led the way inside, Felix close behind.

As they walked quickly down the glowing corridor (both figured it might not be a good idea to run), Alex turned and started walking backwards. "What if you covered your face?" he suggested.

Felix looked confused. "Why?"

"Well, your sister, see. It might be too much of a shock for her."

He hadn't thought about that. She _would_ be more than surprised to see him, and he still wasn't sure what he'd say to her when he saw her again. After a second, he fixed the thick collar of his cloak so that it hid his face from the nose down. "How's this?" he said, though the cloth muffled his words.

"Perfect. I hardly recognize you."

"Great. Could you turn around and walk normally now?"

"No, I enjoy fraying your nerves," Alex said impishly. He turned anyway.

* * *

If the door room was beautiful, the inner sanctum was breathtaking.

Jenna stepped down from the entryway onto a rough stone platform. What she noticed first was the sky. The ceiling, she corrected herself, they were underground. It was pitch black, but dotted with bright specks of red, blue, violet, and golden light. The stone beneath her feet was what provided most of the light, though; the general atmosphere was a soothing bluish-green.

Garet was also awestruck; Isaac's face seemed more contemplative, as though he were already trying to piece together a plan for _this_ room. The layout of the floor, where there _was_ a floor and not just empty space, was relatively simple; it was basically a large letter "X," with the door platform in the center. Interestingly, the door they had just come through was not connected to anything, but stood independently on one edge of the platform. In the corners of the X were four statues similar to those in the preceding room, but slightly different; it was hard to make out the details from this distance, though. The statues were connected to the central platform by a series of columns, which were linked to one another by thin, ladder-like projections of the same stone; it looked like they had all been hewn from a single piece of rock.

Below the platforms and the ladders was a bottomless pit. Isaac separated out a stone from the smooth ground and tossed it over the edge, listening carefully for it to hit bottom, but no sound came back up. After a minute of waiting, he grimaced. "It's pretty deep," he said.

"I could've told you that," said Jenna, leaning timidly toward the edge from about three feet shy of it.

"Well, no time to waste," said Isaac. "We're just going to have to be extra-careful."

"You're joking," Garet protested.

"You're not scared of heights and you know it," Isaac groaned.

"What about _depths?"_ said Garet.

Isaac rubbed his forehead in aggravation. "Okay, fine. Jenna, you coming?"

Jenna glanced again at the maw beneath them. "Um… actually, why don't I stay _here,_ and cheer on you big, strong men?"

"By which you mean me," said Isaac, "since Garet's too much of a girl to come along."

"Hey, take that back!" Garet puffed out his chest. "I never said I wasn't going, you dork." Without waiting for a response, he crossed to the nearest horizontal ladder, put his foot on the first rung… and slipped.

All three shouted. Isaac lunged for him and caught him by the back of the collar, then pulled him back to solid ground with a _thud._ Garet rubbed his throat where the shirt had caught him and wheezed. "Don't try and walk it, stupid," Isaac rebuked. "Hands and knees. Like this."

To demonstrate, he knelt and crawled across the ladder to the first pillar. "Come on, Garet, we don't have all day!" he called.

"All right, all right, I'm coming," Garet snapped. "Geez!"

As they reached the larger platform at the end, where the statue stood, they finally got to their feet again. From the other end of the ladder, Jenna could now tell that it was about two feet taller than Garet. Its cupped hands were held out in offering, but as it had its back to her, she couldn't tell what they contained.

"Got the bag?" said Isaac. Garet gave a gruff affirmative and opened the rough bag tied to his belt. Isaac nodded and reached out to take whatever the statue held – then jerked his hand back and shook it, as if burned. "OW! Geez! That went right through my gloves!"

"You okay?" Jenna called.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Isaac called back irritably. "Garet, give me the bag, maybe we can take it off there without touching it."

Using the bag, they scooped their prize out of the stone hands. They stepped back a little when the statue began to glow violet, but once it appeared that turning purple was all it was going to do at this point, they relaxed a little, tied the bag back onto Garet's belt, and crawled back across the ladder to the central platform.

"Here we go," said Garet, and he upended the sack before where Jenna was standing. It spilled out a translucent, fiercely glowing purple gemstone that looked like it would fit comfortably in her hand, but she didn't want to try touching it after what she had just seen.

"Why are you just leaving it here?" she asked as the boys made for the second ladder.

"I don't want to risk dropping them if we can avoid it," Isaac explained. "You know how trapped-out this place is."

So they left the first of the stars there, with Jenna watching it to somehow make sure nothing undesirable happened to it, and together proceeded to the next two statues, the same way each time. The first one turned bright turquoise, and the second gold. Jenna watched her friends' progress anxiously, tensing every time one of them made a misstep. But they made it across the whole sixty-odd feet and back safely each time. Still, she was just as nervous watching them cross the ladder to the final statue.

Just as the boys were about to stand up on the final platform, Jenna heard something make a tap on the ground behind her. She whirled around to see, stepping through the door, a man with blue skin and rough, scaly shoulders – the man Isaac had seen—! – but she didn't have time to think about it before he rushed at her. He already had her by the wrist by the time she screamed.

Hearing her, Isaac (who had just gotten safely to his feet) spun to face them. "Jenna!" he and Garet shouted simultaneously.

"Let me go! Let me go, you—" Jenna shrieked as the man pulled her in front of him, clasped her back firmly to his metal breastplate and clamped his other arm around her shoulders. She kicked and struggled to get free, but only for a second, before she felt cold steel touch her neck.

"Stay where you are," Saturos said frostily.

Having no other choice, Isaac and Garet didn't move from their platform. Menardi entered by the freestanding door. "We really owe you kids some thanks," she gloated. "You opened up the inner sanctum, and I see you've already collected three out of four stars for us… saves us a lot of work." She smiled cruelly, gesturing at the three stones at her feet.

"Yeah, thank you," Saturos agreed. "Go ahead and get that fourth one, too, won't you?"

"As if we're going to help _you!"_ snapped Isaac.

Saturos frowned, and pulled his knife a tiny bit further into Jenna's neck. It drew no blood, but she let out a loud gasp. Across the chasm, Isaac and Garet froze in terror.

"I said, please go and get the fourth star for us," Saturos repeated with a sickening grin.

At first Isaac didn't move, but stood there shaking with rage and indignation. Then Garet tapped him on the shoulder and hissed something in his ear that those on the main platform couldn't hear. Menardi tapped her foot impatiently. "We're _waiting,"_ she called.

Finally, Isaac pulled his glare away from them and snatched Garet's bag from his hand. Wordlessly he threw it over the final star and scooped it out of the statue's outstretched palms.

The statue turned bright red, as expected, but at the same time there was a small tremor in the ground beneath them, which had not occurred with the other three statues. After the first jolt, the ground continued to rumble, and only stopped when four pillars of light shot upwards out of the statues' heads. The beams stretched upwards as far as the eye could see, as if there were no ceiling at all, and the bright pinpricks of color began to shine even brighter. Everyone stopped short, trying to reckon whether this was a bad sign; Jenna felt the pressure of the blade on her neck lessen a bit.

It didn't last long; Saturos pressed it back into her skin as soon as he had decided they were safe. "Good. Bring it here," he demanded.

Just then, another voice rang out from behind him. "_SATUROS, NO!"_

Saturos turned enough to see who it was. "You're supposed to be on watch!" he yelled at the two men who had just stepped through the portal.

"There's nothing to watch out there and you know it," retorted Alex.

"Put her down," Felix said, slowly and severely.

Menardi roughly grabbed him by the shoulder and jerked him aside. "This is neither the time nor the place for your little insurrections," she hissed.

"When _is?_ Once he's killed her?"

She glanced at Saturos for a moment, then turned back to Felix. "He won't," she replied, too softly for anyone but them to hear.

Isaac and Garet sensed the tension brewing on the other side of the abyss, and at last made their decision. "Hey!" Isaac called.

Everyone by the door turned to look at him. He was holding up the Mars Star, separating it from his hand with the thick cloth of the bag. "You want this?" he said threateningly.

"Oh, God, he's going to throw it," Menardi groaned, and strode quickly to the very edge of the platform.

Jenna watched him helplessly; and for a second, his eyes caught hers, questioning. She hesitated, then nodded. If it were her or the whole world, she'd rather it be her. Isaac returned the nod and continued. "Go get it," he challenged, and tossed it lackadaisically into the chasm.

For a few seconds, it fell through a disbelieving, horrified silence.

Saturos withdrew the knife and threw Jenna harshly to the ground, bolting to the edge. "You _idiot!_ You goddamned _idiot!_ Do you have _any_ idea what you just did!"

Felix instinctively darted to his sister's side and tried to help her up, but she swatted his hand away and stood on her own. Then she rushed to where the other three stars lay and kicked one of them, trying to make it clear the brink, but it stopped a foot short. Menardi restrained her. "Alex, get those! We have to get out of here before—"

A sudden tremor shook the cavern, quite nearly throwing everyone to their knees. Unlike the first one, this continued for several long seconds, increasing in magnitude until it petered out quickly at the end. As soon as he could do so without falling over, Alex took the pack they'd brought for this purpose and swept the three remaining stars into it. "I agree with Menardi, let's get the hell out of here," he said.

Garet was about to crawl back over the ladder when the second tremor hit; he pulled back quickly as, with the unsettling grinding of stone against stone, the eight-foot section of ladder nearest them snapped off and plummeted into the deep chasm. But it did not plunge into sheer blackness; there was a growing orange light rising up from beneath them. The heat of the magma could already be felt wafting upwards through the chamber. Garet shouted a curse.

"Isaac! Garet!" Jenna screamed, wrenching herself free from Menardi's grip and rushing to the edge. Menardi didn't seem to care, and was the first one out the doorway. Saturos followed her. Alex stood anxiously by the portal as Felix grabbed his sister by the wrist and pulled her away. She broke his grip and returned to the edge, shouting, "Isaac, Garet! You can make it! Come on!"

Felix tried to take her by the arm again, but again she broke away. Finally, he gruffly wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her off the ground. She struggled to get free, but he was stronger; within a second he had disappeared with her through the door.

Alex was about to follow after them, but then he heard a shout over the increasing roar of the volcano's rising flame. "You're just going to leave us to _die?"_ Isaac yelled.

Alex hesitated, then sighed apologetically. "How do you suggest I save you?" he shouted back, and then exited the room before they could respond.

The company fled Sol Sanctum with as much speed as they could muster, despite the continually worsening tremors. When they passed through the door from the dark underground into the bright light of the sun, they immediately veered off the road leading back to town and staggered as best they could into the cover of the trees lining the path, heading eastward with the slowly reddening, steadily dimming sun at their backs. The violence of the shaking earth destabilized their footing, but it was even more dangerous to slow down or stop so close to the volcano.

Felix dragged Jenna along by one arm as they ran. "Let me _go!"_ the latter cried. "They're going to _die,_ damn it! They're going t—_aaah!"_

They encountered a terrace unexpectedly and skidded down the steep incline. Felix stretched out his arms instinctively to keep his balance, but in the process he lost his grip on his sister. Jenna took advantage of this and, as soon as she was back on her feet, bolted away toward the village; but not two seconds later, a different hand gripped her arm, yanking her backward with a yelp. Alex handed her off to the waiting Felix, who nodded in thanks and continued after Saturos, pulling Jenna in his wake.

And then, with a massive _BOOM,_ Mt. Aleph erupted. The whole peak of the mountain shattered and then exploded, spewing out prodigious amounts of rock and black soot. The force of the explosion rocked the earth, sending the entire party sprawling. From behind them came a chorus of terrified screams from the village. Red lava dribbled over the volcano's lip and oozed down its eastern face like foam from a pot boiled too long.

Saturos was the first to regain his balance. "What're you waiting for? Keep moving!" he bellowed over the roar of the earth.

Felix got up and reached down to pull Jenna from where she sat on the ground, unmoving even to tremble. She sat there among the grass and twigs, leaves in her hair, and stared up at the mountain through dead eyes. In her mind, there was no longer anyone else on earth but her. They were gone. Isaac and Garet, who had been her friends since before she could walk, who had held her when her parents were lowered into the earth, who had taught her how to whistle, were just … gone.

She didn't respond when Felix finally pulled her to her feet and continued through the woods. _I'm asleep,_ she tried to convince herself. _I'm asleep._ In the waking world, it was impossible for a single mountain – a stupid, unthinking hunk of rock – to take from her everyone she had ever loved. Branches scratched at her arms and face as she ran mechanically after her captors, but she hardly felt their sting. Compared to what she felt in her heart, falling into a bramble bush would have been a pleasant experience.

* * *

The party only stopped when it could go no further, as the combined effects of sunset and ash fallout turned the sky pitch-black. They had found a small clearing and that was where Saturos decreed they would make camp. He himself took the liberty of building the fire and igniting it with a thought, and for a while afterwards, everyone sat around it eating the dry biscuits that constituted their provisions at the moment. Alex offered some to Jenna before Felix got a chance to, but she flatly refused it.

Felix ate slowly, watching his sister; she sat outside their circle at the base of a tree, curled into a ball and sobbing quietly into her knees. Every so often she would glance up and meet his eyes, but each time he turned quickly away and concentrated on his biscuit for a few seconds.

Saturos also glanced over at her a few times, though his gaze was irritated rather than troubled. As soon as he had finished the last bite of his meal, he leaned forward into the circle and voiced a concern that had been bothering him for hours. "The girl knows too much," he said. "We have to silence her."

Felix abandoned what was left of his dinner, throwing it to the ground. It impacted with more force than he had intended and kicked up a cloud of dust. "You're _not_ going to kill her," he declared unambiguously.

"_You shut up,"_ Saturos ordered. "Stop begging for everyone's life like they're your kin. If she goes back, we suddenly have everyone and their sixteenth cousin looking for us. I don't want to have to deal with that on top of everything else."

"Well, that much is obvious," Alex interjected diplomatically, "but it might actually be better if we kept her alive _with_ us."

Saturos stared at him as if he'd just suggested they bury themselves alive in anthills. "You've got to be kidding. I'm not going to spend my money feeding a useless tagalong."

"But she isn't useless."

"We already _have_ earth and fire adepts, Alex."

"No, it's not just that." Alex shook his head. "If Vale somehow finds out what we've done—don't look at me like that, it _is_ possible—like you said, everyone and their umpteenth cousin will be after us. But they might not give us so much trouble if—"

"If we played the hostage card," said Saturos, adjusting to that line of thought. "There's an idea. But—" he pointed harshly at Alex and Felix "—her food's not coming out of the common purse."

"I'll pay it," said Felix, glancing at Jenna again. Her tearful eyes were already fixed on him, glaring over her crossed arms, but this time he didn't look away. He couldn't; it tore at his heart too much to just sit by the fire while she suffered. But what could he say to her?

After a moment's thought, he decided it didn't matter whether he said anything. With all eyes following him, he got up and knelt down next to her, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Jenna—"

In a sudden rage, Jenna lashed out, swatting his hand hard into the tree trunk. "_Get away from me, you creep!_ Who do you think you _are!_ You think I haven't _noticed_ you staring at me all night? I'm not _stupid!"_

Stunned, Felix rubbed his wrist in silence.

"You've been dragging me through the wilderness all day, you blew up my home and left my best friends to die in Sol Sanctum, and now you can't decide whether to kill me or not! Well – well why _don't_ you!" she sobbed.

When no one answered, she buried her head in her arms again. "Go ahead. I don't even care," she murmured softly.

"Don't talk like that," said Felix, touching her shoulder again. "Jenna, please… it's _me."_

After a moment of pretending she hadn't heard him, Jenna raised her head and met his gaze. Then, all of a sudden, her eyes went wide as she made out his face through the flickering light. "Oh my god!" she whispered. "Oh my god!"

Felix managed kind of a smile. He pulled gently on her shoulder, but a second later she dove into his chest on her own, weeping disconsolately with her arms wrapped tight around his ribs.

"Why didn't you come home?" she choked out between sobs.

Felix pulled her head close and stroked her hair reassuringly. "I came as soon as I could," he replied, trying to hold back his own threatening tears. "Don't cry, Jenna. I won't – I'll never leave you alone again."

On the other side of the campfire, Saturos tossed aside the reed he'd been absently chewing on and stood. "Disgusting. I'm going to go over here and be sick," he muttered as he left the circle.

"Don't be an ass, Saturos," Menardi groaned.

Felix looked up at the rest of his companions, but Alex just smiled and waved dismissively. "Take however long you need, Felix."

Felix nodded his thanks and turned back to his sister. He didn't let go of her for the rest of the night.

* * *

… _Merry New Yearsmas?_

_Um… go ahead and review it then (cough)_


	7. Vault

Sole Dorato: Lui Restaurarà

by Tafkae

_Chapter Six: Vault_

* * *

Menardi roused everyone early the next morning, as the cloudy sky was just beginning to lighten, and they broke camp and departed for the nearby town of Vault. For this leg of the trip their pace was a bit more relaxed, though they still moved with a certain sense of urgency; also, they continued to shy away from the road – just in case. Jenna didn't need to be dragged this time, but followed of her own accord, sticking close to Felix. The two of them spent most of the morning in awkward, hushed conversation (Saturos had insisted upon at least _relative_ quiet), trying to catch up and relate to each other everything that had happened to them over the last three years. Jenna seemed to have more answers than Felix could think of questions for, and she had more questions than he really wanted to answer right away.

They reached Vault at a bit past noon; or rather, that was when they reached the spot _near_ Vault where Saturos chose to have them stop. It was a little northwest and uphill of the town, about where the woods of the foothills gave way to the long stretch of plains below. "This is close enough," said Saturos.

"We're not going into town?" said Alex.

"No. At least, not all of us. We're still too close to Vale, and I've got a feeling that if we're going to have trouble with them it'll be today. The moment we set foot inside those gates, everyone knows we've been here – we kind of stand out in these parts, if you hadn't noticed."

"We _do_ need supplies, though," Menardi reminded him. "Imil's still over a week away."

Saturos grunted. "Assuming we're still going. But yes, at any rate, this is the best place to pick up supplies. It's even a few days to the next town after this." He glanced around the gathering, from Felix, to Jenna (who was almost attached to Felix), to Alex, to Menardi, then back to Alex. "You. You're going into town."

"But I thought we _didn't_ want to stand out," said Alex.

"Your skin's white, isn't it?"

"Felix is more average-looking than I am."

"Well I don't _trust_ Felix," Saturos retorted, glancing to where Felix stood not four feet away. Felix furrowed his brow in annoyance, but said nothing; instead, he took Jenna by the shoulder and led her to a fallen log a little ways off, where they sat to talk in peace.

Saturos heaved a deep, impatient sigh and made himself comfortable where he was. Menardi crossed to Alex and took the common purse from her belt. "Here. There's a good amount in there, so if you manage to spend it all, you're a dead man."

"Yes ma'am," said Alex.

"I don't know how much Felix has personally. You can work it out with him when you come back." She tilted her head to look past him to Felix and Jenna. "Huh… figures we'd end up kidnapping someone he knows. Look at them! You'd think they were family."

"Oh, they are," Alex said casually. "She's his younger sister."

Menardi started. "_That's_ his sister? The one he's been whining about for three solid years?" Alex nodded. "Why didn't he say anything?"

"He did. That's how I know." He smiled. "It works out for the best, I think. They were very close before they were separated back then."

"Were they." Menardi absently chewed her thumbnail for a moment, then finally added, "Go ahead and take her expenses from the common purse, too. Family is family."

Alex grinned and nodded, then started down what little hill was left between their position and the western gate of the town.

Vault was actually smaller than Vale by permanent population; a good third of its inhabitants at any given time were just passing through. Nestled just inside the foothills, it sat at a crossroads, with well-worn paths leading north, east, and south, and a rather overgrown path leading west. The road to Vale was apparently not used much, and what little use it _did_ see was liable to diminish even further given the recent eruption.

For that reason, the west side of the town bustled less with travelers and more with actual townspeople, it seemed. He could hear with great clarity the sound of hooves on cobbled streets, but only saw one or two carts go by; most of the activity in this part of town just consisted of everyday folk running errands between the whitewashed buildings. Even this activity was sparse, though, since many of the people who could shut themselves indoors for protection did. As Alex continued into town, he became increasingly aware of the turned heads and pointed fingers aimed in his direction, but did his best to ignore the undue attention.

_You're not the only one people gawk at, Saturos,_ he thought ironically.

Still, he felt a certain eagerness to be done with the shopping. The first grocer he came across looked well enough, so he stopped in there and picked up most of what they needed, this time actively pretending he had no idea what it was everyone found so interesting about him. As he finished and hoisted the now-heavier pack onto his shoulders, he noticed a commotion stirring outside through the shop's display window. Curious, he hurried outside to investigate.

The disturbance was centered around two town guards, one significantly taller than the other, who dragged along between them a small, blond-haired boy. The boy was putting up a good struggle, and protesting "Please, I swear I didn't do it! Let me go!" – but as both guards were easily half again as large as their captive, his resistance didn't do him much good.

Alex wasn't the only one who had stopped to watch; a few other passers-by were doing the same, some looking upset and others, smugly satisfied. But as it didn't appear anyone intended to intervene, Alex stepped forward and caught up.

"Hey!" he called, bringing the guards' attention to him. "Excuse me, what's he charged with, if you don't mind?"

"Robbing the temple during the eruption," said the shorter one.

"But I _didn't,"_ the boy insisted.

"Here, he says he didn't do it," said Alex, perplexed.

"He's lying. You know _his kind—"_ the taller guard sneered and tightened his grip on the arm he was holding, which made the boy wince "—they can't be trusted."

"'His kind'? What's that nonsense?"

"Soothsayers, diviners. The so-called 'psychics.' Pack of liars," spat the tall guard. The shorter one nodded agreement.

"I don't see how having special abilities is a crime," Alex retorted, crossing his arms.

"Well, it isn't," said the shorter guard. "But robbery is."

"How do you know he's a robber then? If you don't have any proof other than all seers being liars, then you've got a pretty weak case against him, _I'd_ say."

"I wasn't even on the same side of town," the boy pointed out hopefully.

The guards looked at one another and murmured something back and forth about he had a point and false arrests and demotion. After a moment of this, the taller one groaned and the two let go of the boy, who quickly scurried away to retrieve a long, thin, cloth-wrapped object that he'd dropped not far behind where Alex stood now.

"Watch yourself, boy," threatened the tall one, pointing at him. "We've got our eyes on you."

"Jerks," the boy muttered under his breath at their retreating backs, rubbing his arm.

Alex turned to him. "You all right?"

The boy nodded, then quickly bowed his head. "Thank you for getting me out of that, sir."

Alex looked down as well. "Yes, thank you, Shoes, we couldn't have done it without you."

Startled, the boy looked back up and stammered a little. Alex grinned. "You're welcome. What's your name?"

"I-Ivan, sir."

"Pleasure to meet you, Ivan, I'm Alex. Not that it matters much given how soon I'm leaving town, but still." He glanced about; the few people who had stopped before were already dispersed now that the interesting part was over. "Out of curiosity," he asked, turning back to Ivan, "are you really a psychic?"

Ivan sighed, clearly stifling annoyance. "I'm sorry, you must get that a lot," Alex added.

"Yeah… well… okay. Think of a number," said Ivan in a tone that said _Let's_ _get this over with._

Alex did, and Ivan closed his eyes briefly. Just then the Imilian felt a sudden slight _twinge_ that vanished almost as immediately as it had appeared. It made him jump, and he opened his mouth to make a surprised remark, but before he got a chance, Ivan opened his eyes and said, correctly, "Three million twelve."

"Wow," said Alex, the twinge all but forgotten. "Amazing! Must be a useful skill, I imagine."

"Not really," Ivan replied nervously, averting his eyes. "Look, I, um… I have to go." He turned to leave, stopped, turned back. "Thanks again for your help," he said.

"You're welcome again. Goodbye," Alex replied cheerily. Without another word, Ivan fled down the street and disappeared at the next crossroads.

Alex stared after him even after he vanished. _What an odd person,_ he thought briefly, then shrugged and returned to his errand.

* * *

Ivan sat down on the first bench he found once he had rounded the corner, and tried to sort out his thoughts. There was something about the blue-haired man that made him nervous, but he couldn't put his finger on what. After a moment he shoved that line of thinking aside and turned his mind to more urgent matters. Like food.

Even by looking at him, it was obvious he wasn't native to Vault; his brightly-colored clothing, while fashionable in his hometown of Kalay, was quite out of place among the muted hues that most people wore north of the river. Ivan had been traveling with is guardian, Hammet the merchant, mostly because of the edge his mind-reading ability gave them in the business arena; but the caravan had left this morning in the wake of the eruption, and here he was, left behind.

_So, I have nowhere to stay, no money to buy food, and no way to get home,_ he thought with a sigh. In fact, all he had to his name right now were four silver pieces and a staff wrapped in cloth. _I wonder how much I could get for the staff… _He shook his head. _What am I thinking? It's a priceless family heirloom! And not even _my _family at that…_

His stomach growled, and he rubbed it to try and make it shut up. It didn't really work. Finally he got up and decided to see if anyplace was offering free samples. It'd be _something,_ at least.

He wandered around town for hours with no luck, until finally, at about four in the afternoon, an old lady feeding birds took pity and gave him half a loaf of bread. He thanked her profusely and went a little ways away to eat it, leaning against a wall out of the way.

As he munched away, he absently took in the details of his surroundings. Only a few people were still outside in this weather – it wasn't raining, but between the unseasonable cool and the deep grey of the overcast sky, Ivan had been a little worried all day that he might get caught in a sudden cloudburst. The air didn't quite smell of rain yet, though, so he was probably safe.

Of the handful of people in the street, the most interesting one was a balding man with his two- or three-year-old son sitting on his shoulders. The man was pointing up the mountain and speaking to the son. Ivan wondered vaguely if he was teaching, storytelling, or warning, but didn't really feel like checking; at any rate, he didn't seem afraid like the rest of the townspeople, and it was kind of a refreshing change.

After a minute or so, though, he was distracted as two boys flagged the man and started talking to him. One had sandy hair and wore a long, bright yellow scarf around his neck; the other was a taller, well-muscled redhead. Neither was dressed in the style Ivan had come to associate with Vault. From here he couldn't make out what they were saying to the man, but it didn't matter, because they came and repeated it to him next.

"Hey, seen any interesting characters around lately?" asked Isaac.

Ivan blinked, and quickly swallowed the last bit of his bread. "Interesting characters?"

"Yeah," said Garet, nodding. "Specifically a blue-skinned man and a red-skinned woman."

Ivan shook his head. "No, sorry. I did meet a man with blue _hair_ earlier today, but nobody with blue _skin…"_

He'd said something right; the duo looked to each other in surprise. "Wasn't there a…?" Garet asked.

Isaac nodded. "Yeah, there was. Did he say where he was going, kid?"

Ivan scowled. "Don't call me 'kid,' please, we're the same age. And no, he didn't, he just said he was leaving town soon."

"Aghh! So we missed them?" Garet threw his hands in the air in frustration.

"Hey, it's the best lead we have yet," said Isaac. "Thanks for your help," he added, to Ivan.

"Um… you're welcome," Ivan said to their backs as they began to walk away. A second later, though, an idea struck him, and he pushed away from the wall and went after them. "Um, excuse me, uh…"

The boys turned to him. "Yeah?" said Isaac.

"I really hate to ask this, but, uh…" Ivan scratched the back of his neck, starting to regret he'd thought of this. "Can you spare a few gold? I kind of got stranded here during the eruption, and I don't have anywhere to stay the night…"

"Why don't you stay with us?" Garet offered almost instantly.

"_Garet!"_ Isaac shouted .

"Come on, Isaac! It's just one night…"

"I really couldn't," Ivan stammered.

"We don't bite," said Garet.

Isaac sighed, aggravated. "All right, all right, hang on. We're just staying at an inn tonight, so you know. Probably a really cheap one."

"As long as it has a roof," said Ivan.

"And it's only the one night."

"That's okay. I'm going to try and hoof it back home tomorrow morning anyway."

"Where do you live?" said Garet.

"Kalay, across the Blue River down south."

Garet nodded. "Ahhhh. Never heard of it."

"Yeah you have." Isaac shook his head. "Anyway, what's your name? I'm Isaac, and my friend is Garet…"

"Ivan," Ivan replied. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," said Isaac. "We may as well get that room now, come to think of it. I don't want to get in after dark and find out they're all taken."

"Good idea," said Garet, and all three of them headed down the street looking for an inn.

Pretty soon, Isaac tried to strike up a conversation. "So, uh, how'd you get stranded here, Ivan?"

Ivan bit his lip out of habit, then released it and explained. "I was with this merchant caravan going through town, and after the eruption, Hammet – he's in charge – he got spooked and decided to leave town all of a sudden this morning, and the other guys sort of accidentally-on-purpose left me behind."

"Not just accidentally?" said Garet.

Ivan shook his head. "No, I woke up the same time as everybody else… they just drugged me and put me back to sleep, and when I woke up _again,_ it was noon and everyone was gone."

"That's not very nice," Garet remarked.

"Yeah," Isaac agreed, disgusted. "Geez, why would they go to all that trouble to ditch you?"

Ivan stiffened. He knew exactly why they would go to all that trouble, but didn't want to say it. He tried to phrase it differently than the way his mind first put it. "They … didn't like that I can…"

He trailed off, realizing he shouldn't have said anything. The surprise he felt from Isaac told him the question had been rhetorical, but it wasn't _now,_ evidently.

"That you can what?" asked Garet.

"Read minds," Ivan mumbled. "That – that I can read minds."

The other two were taken aback, as he'd expected. "For real?" Garet exclaimed. "That's awesome!"

"It's not that great," said Ivan, looking away.

"Sure it is. You could make a fortune off the blackmail _alone."_

Ivan was about to voice his offense at that when Isaac spoke up, cutting him off. "Hey. Ivan, let's say you needed to find someone, quickly, but didn't know where to look. Can you do that?"

Ivan thought. "Uh… probably. Why?"

"Because I just thought of how you can pay off your share of the room."

* * *

"The question remains, where do we go from here?" Menardi asked. Alex and Saturos sat in the circle with her, but neither had a good answer off the top of their heads.

"If we had all four stars it wouldn't be an issue," she continued. "But we don't. So is it worth it to go around and light the three towers we can, when the Mars Star has been destroyed?"

"Somehow I doubt it's been destroyed," said Alex. "It's possible it survived the eruption. And it wouldn't make much sense if the only way to save the world were _that_ easy to ruin, anyway."

"It's not a matter of making _sense,"_ Menardi countered. "It doesn't make _sense_ that they sealed the power up to begin with."

"I'm sure it made sense to the people… who…"

Alex trailed off, then quickly turned and looked back at Vault through the trees. "What is it?" said Menardi.

"I'm not sure," Alex replied warily. It felt like the same kind of twinge he'd sensed when that kid – Ivan, was it? – had read his mind for the number… Disconcerted, he turned back to the circle. "I guess it's nothing," he said, but he just couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss.

* * *

"I think I found her," said Ivan. It hadn't taken long; the first person named Jenna that he found in his scan of town had matched their description of her.

He sat on the edge of one of the beds in the room they'd rented, with Isaac and Garet seated across from him on the other. The two lit up as he said that. "That's great! Is she all right? Where is she?"

Their questions bit into his concentration, and he held up a hand palm out to shush them. "Hold on a moment, just a moment…" _I hope the link's strong enough from here,_ he thought to himself, and then, uncertainly, he sent a greeting to the girl at the other end.

* * *

Northwest of town, and maybe twenty yards from the rest of their group, Felix and Jenna gathered up firewood for the evening in near-silence. Both felt they ought to be speaking, but didn't know what to say to each other at all.

Jenna finally turned to her brother, her arms full of sticks and pinecones for kindling. "Felix… you still haven't told me why you're helping them."

The Psynergy wave he was trying to split his current log with went askew and sent a large chip of it flying, missing Jenna's head by just inches. Jenna flinched, but didn't move from her spot. Felix stared at the log; from his expression she knew he had heard her question, but it didn't look like he knew how to answer it. Well, that was all right, she had all the time in the world to wait for an answer.

She didn't get one, though, because just then a voice rang out inside her mind. "_Hello – Jenna?"_

With a loud gasp, she jumped back, letting her kindling clatter to the ground. Felix turned to her, surprised. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Who's there?" Jenna shouted, spinning to look behind her. The forest was empty. What on earth was—?

"_Don't panic, don't panic!"_ the voice called again. It was similar to the voices of the statues in Sol Sanctum, but clearer, uncluttered by background gibberish; and this voice sounded like a boy, not a woman. "_You don't have to talk aloud. I can hear you either way. Are you alone?"_

"Who—" She swallowed, then jumped as she suddenly felt her brother's hand tap her shoulder. _Felix. Felix is here._

"What did you hear?" Felix asked, concerned.

"I – I thought I heard…"

"_Your brother Felix?"_ said the voice.

"Yes. What? I – I heard a – I guess there's nothing there, heh heh." She flashed him a nervous smile and then, suddenly realizing she'd dropped the wood, bent to pick it up. Felix raised an eyebrow, puzzled, but gave it up for the moment and got back to chopping.

After Jenna had about three of the sticks back in her arms, the voice piped up again. "_One second, I forgot to introduce – my name's Ivan. I'm in town with Isaac and Garet—"_

She froze, her eyes going wide as saucers; it was all she could do to keep from shouting out loud. _Isaac and Garet! They're alive? Oh my god, they're alive! I can't believe it! Can I talk to them? Where are they?_

"_C-calm down, please!_ _I – we're in Vault, at an inn. I'd love to let you talk to them directly, but I don't really know how… I'm sorry,"_ he added, noting her disappointment.

She sighed. _Okay. Um. How did they escape from inside the volcano?_

For a second she sensed Ivan wondering why she would ask something like that, but he still gave her an answer a few seconds later. "_They don't know how themselves. They woke up in their homes later that evening, unharmed – and the Mars Star was found, too (I don't know what that means). They say they've actually been banished from Vale until they can recover the other stars and free you. Ach – wait—"_

Jenna waited. In the meantime she noticed Felix looking over at her again, and resumed her re-gathering of the sticks on the ground.

"_Ay… they're giving me too many questions at once. Are you all right?"_

She nodded unconsciously. _Yeah, no one's hurt me or anything._ She deliberately didn't mention that they'd almost decided to kill her, but even as she thought of it sideways like that, she felt a foreign rush of shock and worry as Ivan picked it up anyway. _I – I don't want them to worry too much! If you heard that, leave it out._

"_Uh – okay, if you say so…"_ Another pause, and another few twigs returned to her arms. "_Isn't your brother, uh… dead?"_

She looked up at Felix again, and realized he'd already finished with the bigger logs he was supposed to get and was leaning on a nearby tree, waiting for – and watching – her. She flinched and retrieved a bit more of the kindling.

_No, he's not dead. Everyone thought he was – he was washed away and disappeared for three years – but it turns out Saturos and Menardi – the blue and red ones – saved his life and now he's working with them._

"_Do you trust him?"_

_I –_ She stopped as it occurred to her that she didn't really know. _It's only been a day. It's like meeting him all over again. I trust him more than the others, though, that's for sure._ It wasn't as if she had much in the way of choices.

As she reached down to grab another handful of her old kindling, she found her hand digging up only dry pine needles. All the sticks were finally back in her arms. Felix noticed and stood up. "If you're done, we should go on back," he said, extending her a hand. A little hesitantly, she took it and let him pull her back to her feet, and absently followed him toward camp.

Alex, still a bit uneasy, watched the two as they approached. Saturos only acknowledged them as they came within a few feet of him. "About time you came back. What took you so long?"

Felix glanced at Jenna, who still didn't appear to be paying attention, and then back. "Nothing," he said at last, and placed his wood in the center of the circle. Jenna jumped and did the same a second later. Alex kept his eyes on her. Whatever it was that was bugging him, it was centered around her. It wasn't her mere presence, he knew, because her being there hadn't bothered him at all before; in fact, he rather liked her. So what _was_ it? he wondered as she sat down near her brother.

Jenna didn't notice his attention, but instead listened carefully to what Ivan continued to say within her mind. "_Isaac and Garet want you to know they're coming for you. Tonight, I think."_

She tensed a little. _But – Saturos and everyone are really on alert right now! They're _expecting _trouble tonight. I don't want you to get hurt…_

Curiosity overwhelming him, Alex got up and crossed the circle to Jenna, standing not directly in front of her, but almost, and stared down at her slightly bowed head. He glanced at Felix and gestured at the girl questioningly. Felix looked to his sister, then back to his friend. "What?"

"_I'm not going personally,"_ Ivan chuckled nervously. "_But I'll let them know."_

_I don't want them to worry too much. I think – I mean I'm sure Felix won't let anything happen to me._

Alex squatted to bring himself to about her level. "Jenna?"

"_Okay, that's good. Isaac says they'll wait until the opportune—"_

"Are you all right?" When she didn't respond, he leaned forward and took hold of her shoulder.

What happened next was over in a flash. Jenna cried out in shock and scrambled to her feet, inadvertently dragging Alex up with her, but as they did, his eyes met hers – and met the eyes beyond her eyes, a mind beyond her mind – to his surprise, Alex _recognized_ it – and then, just as quickly, all three went reeling away from each other as the mind reader, without warning, snapped the link.

* * *

_I'm aware Ivan does not count as an antagonist._

_I like Ivan._

_Updates are sluggish because I keep getting stuck shortly after the next chapter. My apologies. I'm working on it._

_(coughreviewcough)_


	8. Friendlier and Friendlier

Sole Dorato: Lui Restaurarà

by Tafkae

_Chapter Seven: Friendlier and Friendlier_

* * *

"Damn it! Damn it! _Damn it!"_ Ivan shouted in a panic, springing from his seat.

"What?" said Isaac, startled.

"I got caught. I got – how could I get caught? Aghh – do they think I'm _with_ you guys now? Damn it!" He paced from one end of the small room to the other and back again, pulling at his hair with both hands, and clearly in danger of hyperventilating.

"Okay, _breathe,_" said Isaac, standing.

"What happened?" Garet asked.

"The guy from before! The blue-haired – Alex. He _knew,_ guys! I mean – I think – I don't know—"

"You cut it off, right?" said Isaac.

"Yeah, of course – but I think – he got something. Oh, god, they _know_ about me! What am I going to do!"

Garet made a face. "Look, Ivan, I don't understand a word you're saying—"

"Calm down, guys, calm down," Isaac ordered. "Okay, now hang on. You got caught. Does that mean Jenna got caught?" Ivan nodded rapidly. "But Felix is there, so whatever side he's on, she's not in danger?" Another, slightly less anxious nod. "Okay, then. That's good. Do they know where _we_ are?"

Ivan swallowed against a dry throat. "I – I'm not sure. I don't think so."

"And do they know that we have the Mars Star with us?"

Ivan blinked. "You have it _with_ you?"

Isaac ran his hand through his hair and let out a deep breath, relieved. "Okay. What you don't know, they don't know. Good." He straightened up. "I think we're still in the clear for tonight."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, even if they know that we're alive and chasing them, it shouldn't make a difference. If they don't know we have the Mars Star, then they have no reason to come after us."

Garet nodded. "Yeah, good point."

"But—" Ivan shook his head, confused. "I don't know, guys. I've got a really bad feeling about this."

"Don't worry too much," said Isaac, looking out the window at the overcast and dusky sky. "Get some sleep tonight. You'll need energy to make it back to Kalay."

Ivan tried to shrug it off and agreed. Still, unrelated to the gathering storm outside or the fact that he'd volunteered to sleep on the floor that night (since there were only two beds), he lay awake for hours, too worried to fall asleep at all, the nameless fear wrapping itself around him.

* * *

"Ivan!" Alex shouted as he recovered his balance, pointing at Jenna. "You were talking to Ivan, weren't you?"

"I wasn't – who's Ivan? You're crazy!" Jenna yelled back.

"The mind reader from town, you know that!"

Saturos leapt to his feet. "Did you say a mind reader!"

"Yes, yes, I met him earlier, but the point is—"

"Why didn't you _SAY_ anything!"

"Why didn't _you ASK_ anything!"

Saturos glanced to Menardi and back with a wild grin. "Can you believe this? Lady Luck isn't just smiling on us anymore, gentlemen, she wants to bear our _children!"_

An awkward silence followed. Alex smiled back uncertainly. "As _wonderful_ a mental image as that is, Saturos, what are you talking about?"

"What kind of adepts do we already have?" said Saturos.

"Earth, fire, and water."

"And what kind do we still need?"

Alex ticked them briefly off on his fingers. "Wind."

"And what is one ability absolutely unique to wind adepts?"

No one knew, except Menardi, who finally filled the silence. "That would be mind reading," she said sternly, folding her arms across her chest.

"Exactly," said Saturos.

"So if Ivan is a wind adept, we need him to come with us to light the Jupiter Lighthouse," Alex assumed. Saturos nodded an affirmative. "Okay. But how are we going to do that when he's already thrown his lot in with Isaac and Garet?"

Menardi recognized the names, though Saturos had already forgotten them. "What? Those kids from the inner sanctum?" she asked in disbelief. "Didn't they die in the eruption?"

"Apparently not," said Alex. "And apparently they're following us, and apparently they've managed to enlist the aid of the wind adept, Ivan – _oh,_ and apparently the Mars Star wasn't destroyed after all," he tacked on with an _I-told-you-so_ look in Menardi's direction.

"How do you suddenly _know_ all this?" said Felix suspiciously.

Alex furrowed his brow. "You know, I'm not sure." He turned to Jenna. "I think your sister might have an idea."

Jenna froze; all eyes were suddenly boring into _her._ "Eh – I—"

"Leave her out of this," said Felix, stepping between her and the others.

"She's the one Ivan was contacting," Alex pointed out. "Isaac put him up to it."

"They just wanted to know if I was all right!" Jenna suddenly blurted.

"_Shut up!"_ yelled Saturos. His voice, combined with the coincidental thunderclap immediately following it, silenced the rest of his party very quickly.

"You know what?" he continued. "I don't care how he knows, I don't care who this kid's traveling with. This is our one chance to get what we need before it disappears." He glanced around the circle. "It's a given that our next stop is Imil, now that we know about the Mars Star. We can return to Vale later for that, but right now – this is our _one chance_ to get what we need for the Jupiter Lighthouse. Once we have _him,_ the beacons are as good as lit." He pointed to Alex. "Alex, you and I are going into town the second it's dark enough. Menardi will stay and watch the others."

Alex looked up through the rustling leaves at the deep grey cloud cover. "More kidnapping, huh? This mission just keeps getting friendlier and friendlier."

There was another peal of thunder, and Jenna shivered. Her train of thought had automatically descended to the worst-case scenario, which involved more bloodshed than she wanted to imagine all at once. Anxious, she watched Saturos until he turned and leaned against a tree, staring restlessly down at the town below. Then she switched her attention to Alex, who had gone back to staring at the sky and wondering if it would rain. After a few seconds' deliberation, she reached over and tugged at his sleeve. "What. Yes?" he asked, lowering his vision to her.

For a moment, she couldn't say anything, but his bright cerulean eyes continued to watch her quizzically. "I—" she stammered at last. "—They didn't mean anything by it – they just wanted to know if I was all right, d—don't hurt them, please—"

To her surprise, Alex actually smiled at that. "Your friends mean a lot to you, don't they?" he replied quietly.

She paused, taken off-balance by the interruption. "Y-yes."

Alex nodded once and bowed his head. "Then on my healer's honor, I promise none of them will be harmed."

Jenna forced a worried smile, then blinked and looked up, feeling a drop on her head. "It's going to rain soon," she whispered.

"I think you're right," Alex replied, although she hadn't meant him to. "It's all the ash from the eruption, you know, that's got the weather so upset. I don't really mind, myself, but…"

There were another few drops, which quickly escalated into a steady drizzle. Saturos pushed off from the tree. "Alex! We're going."

They stepped quickly across the open, grassy expanse between their camp and Vault. As they walked, Saturos outlined their plan in brief. "Do you know where they are?"

Alex thought for a second. "You know… actually, I think I do. Roughly."

"Good enough. We'll start there," said Saturos.

"There's one thing I wonder, though, Saturos—why is it so imperative that we abduct _this_ wind adept, specifically?"

Saturos glowered at him. "Because there _are_ no wind adepts anymore."

* * *

Inside the inn, Ivan lay on the floor, still awake, vaguely wondering what time it was. It was late enough that most of the candles in the hall had already been put out, so he must have been lying there for hours, trying to put himself to sleep by the steady drone of Garet's snoring and the tapping of rain on the roof above, but at the same time wishing both would stop. He couldn't concentrate on much of anything, as his mind flitted between worry and focusing excessively on small, alien noises that probably weren't anything.

As he was trying to listen to the rain again, he heard a slow _creeeeeeak_ from the direction of the hall, near where his head lay. He shut it out and pretended to be asleep, hoping he'd believe himself. All the same, the persistent sense of danger stuck in his mind began to grow again.

Just then he felt a drop of water hit his face, and his eyes flew open in a sudden blossoming of full-fledged panic. The soggy blue hair hanging over his head was clear to see even in the dim light. He almost managed to get out half a yell before Alex clamped a damp rag over his face. Frantically, Ivan grabbed at the intruder's gloved hand, but his grip weakened quickly, and within seconds, his vision blackened and all the muscles in his small body went slack.

Alex quickly surveyed the scene; Isaac hadn't moved in the quiet commotion, and the buzz from Garet's side of the room hadn't stopped. So far, so good. He nudged Ivan's head a bit to make sure he was sufficiently unconscious, and then, satisfied, took him under the arms and began to pull him from the room, toward the back stairs that Saturos had found with little effort, and where he'd convinced the Proxian to wait.

He had just about reached the door when he felt his leg bump hard against something. The involuntary yelp of pain he could stifle, but unfortunately, the loud clattering of broken pottery on the hard wooden floor, formerly on the end table next to him, was outside his control.

Before he even had time to wince, Ivan's two new friends were wide awake; among their shouts of "Hey, you!" he heard the sound of metal pulled from sheathes. An unexpected wave of Psynergy, with a quick motion of Isaac's free hand, yanked Ivan free from his grip and shoved the water adept into the hallway. For a second Alex thought he'd been winded by his back's loud impact against the wall across from them, but realized he'd had the good fortune not to, and quickly recovered as he tried to think what to do next.

"Get out of here!" Garet bellowed, stepping broadly into the hall not two feet in front of him. "Who do you think you are!"

"Name's Alex," Alex tried pleasantly. "Sorry, it's just we need Ivan's help with something very important and would you mind if—AI!"

He ducked left as Garet's blade barely missed his face and stuck two inches deep in the wall behind him, and came to a halt a few feet down the corridor, hunched defensively. "Look, I don't want to fight you!" he protested.

"You should've thought of that sooner!" Garet shouted back, pulling his sword from the wall and lunging at Alex with a yell.

This time he didn't reach him. Alex threw forward his hand, and the sudden torrent of water that issued from his fingertips broke Garet's momentum and hurled the boy down the hall almost clear to the main stairs. He tried to get up, but then slumped down again. Alex cringed, remembering his promise. _Maybe I just won't tell her about this._

"Garet!" Isaac burst out of the room, first glancing at his friend, then whirling to face his new enemy blade first. "Don't move!"

Alex didn't at first, but not because he had any worry about beating a kid probably seven or eight years younger than himself and at least four inches shorter. The other patrons of the inn were starting to come out of their rooms, wondering what all the noise was about; some of them came armed, and a good number of them were considerably bigger than him. Even with the advantage of Psynergy, he began to sense that it would be downright stupid to pick a fight with the entire hostel.

He flexed his fingers sheepishly, then waved with a smile. "Some other time, perhaps," he said cheerfully, and then, after quickly freezing the water he'd already spilled on the floor, he turned tail and bolted down the back stairs.

From the surprised shouts and _thuds_ behind him, it seemed a few of the other guests hadn't seen the ice in time, he noted with an amusement that was probably inappropriate given the circumstances. As he turned at the landing, he glimpsed Isaac reaching the top of the stairs, and took the second half of the staircase three steps at a time. The door opened easily and he slammed it shut behind him.

Saturos was there waiting for him. "About ti— where's the kid!"

"We're leaving," Alex replied urgently, quickly forming a three-inch-thick barrier of ice over the door. He was just in time – he heard Isaac ram himself against the door a scant half-second after he was finished.

"What did you _do?"_ Saturos demanded, glancing back at the inn as the dim shouts within intensified. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Alex already breaking into a run in the opposite direction. "Alex—!" he protested, and gave chase.

Alex only stopped once they'd been zigzagging through the streets of Vault for at least ten minutes, after his lungs decided they'd had quite enough of this. Saturos skidded on the wet cobblestone a second later and drew up next to him; he looked about as tired as if he hadn't been running at all. "Alex, what the hell!" he roared, easy to hear even over the still-worsening storm. "How is it _possible_ to botch something this simple? You were supposed to go in, drug a small child, and bring him back out! It doesn't _get_ less complicated than that! And yet where is he!"

"Still drugged in the inn, most likely," said Alex, trying to seem unruffled. He'd gotten most of the self-chastisement out of his system while he was running, but now that Saturos had started haranguing him, too, his own mind was agreeing in force again.

"Perfect. Just PERFECT!" Saturos groaned, putting his hands on his hips.

"Look, I just about had him," Alex defended. "The rest of the inn decided to make a scene on me at the last minute. One against twenty, what do you want me to do?"

"Well golly gee, you're right. It's not like you're an _adept_ or anything!" yelled Saturos. "I've seen you fight back in Prox, and you're not crap enough that you couldn't handle it!"

Alex straightened up. "Unlike some people, I don't care to harm people when they become inconvenient, thank you," he snapped.

Saturos' face twisted into a sneer. "'When they become inconvenient.' I knew I shouldn't have trusted you'd do this right. You don't even know why we're _here,_ you're wasting my time!" He doubled back and started to storm off in what was probably the way back to camp.

"This is not a waste of time!" Alex retorted. "Don't act like we failed."

"Where's the kid, Alex?"

"That's just it. He'll be following us now."

Saturos turned his head and shot him an odd look, prompting Alex to explain. "He knows we're after him, and he has nowhere else to go, so he'll probably stay with Isaac for his own safety. If he's with Isaac, and Isaac's tailing _us,_ then we can just snag him later on."

While Saturos' face remained like a hard shell, his eyes betrayed his realization that his train of thought had, once again, been bettered by Alex's rationalizing. His aggravation at being proven wrong was only slightly less intense than the aggravation of failure, but it was still less, and gave at least the _appearance_ that he had begun to calm down, if not the reality.

"And even if nothing else, we at least know he's out there," Alex continued. "It's not over, Saturos."

"Damn right it's not over," snapped Saturos, facing him. "But—" he added, pointing at him harshly "—if you _ever_ fumble this badly again, I don't care _how_ neatly you manage to word your excuses, you're _out._ And I mean _out."_

"Lighthouse," Alex gently reminded him.

"Your sister in Imil's a healer, too, isn't she?" Saturos replied shrewdly.

Without waiting for an answer, he turned his back and swiftly disappeared down the street, leaving his stunned comrade alone in the drenching torrent of the rain.

* * *

_I know this chapter's really short… but had I left it part of the last chapter, it would have been too long…_

_Ah how I love those dilemmas :(_

_Read and rev— oh, I guess you already read if you're here… um… just review then…  
Man, way to throw off my rhythm…_


	9. Northward

Sole Dorato: Lui Restaurarà

by Tafkae

_Chapter Eight: Northward_

* * *

It kept raining through the night without stopping; Jenna knew this because each of the many times she woke from her restless sleep, all she heard was the drizzle and the slow rustling of wet leaves. The hours of darkness ran together so that she couldn't be sure whether or not she was getting any sleep at all. All that suggested the passage of time was who stood watch when she opened her eyes again. It was Alex first; then at some point it was Menardi instead, and then it was Alex again. What time was it? Had Menardi been there at all or had she dreamed it?

Dawn came just as greyly as dusk had. The sun remained invisible through the thick curtain of cloud, ash, and water. At first Jenna tried to go back to sleep yet again, but, unable to do so, she pried her eyes open and looked groggily about the campsite. Across from her, past the pile of soaked, useless wood that had once been the fire, Saturos slept apparently unperturbed by the cold and wet; his sword lay sheathed next to him with his hand firmly clasped over its hilt. Menardi was near him, propped against a tree trunk. Closest to Jenna was Felix, who had his blanket like everyone else, but was missing his cloak; a quick glance at herself revealed that he had draped it over her at some point, though she didn't remember when.

Alex was the only one already awake. He sat on a fallen log not three feet from her, staring out of the trees toward Vault, or perhaps at the vague mountain-shaped shadows past the eastern horizon. Or perhaps he wasn't looking at anything at all.

A yawn snuck up on Jenna and she let it out in spite of herself. The sound attracted the watchman's attention, and when her eyes opened again, his were staring into them. "Good morning. Did you sleep well?" he greeted pleasantly.

She glared indignantly in response. Was he trying to be _funny?_ Of course she hadn't slept well!

Alex chuckled apologetically. "Sorry, I keep forgetting. You sit awake in the rain long enough, you almost stop noticing it after a while." He swung his legs over the log and sat facing into the circle.

Again, Jenna made no response. Alex watched her hopefully for a few moments, then sighed. "You know, Felix told me a lot about you while we were living in Prox," he said. "He said you were so cheerful and outgoing, but honestly, I don't think you've uttered a single cheerful word since I've met you."

"_You_ try being cheerful and outgoing when you've been dragged away from your home and don't know if you'll live to ever see it again," Jenna muttered back.

Alex shrugged. "I don't know. _I've_ managed it so far." He glanced at Saturos briefly to see if he was still asleep, then turned back to her. "If it's any comfort, no one but Saturos has any interest whatsoever in harming you. Personally, I'm rather fond of you, and I think Menardi is as well, and obviously Felix…"

Jenna looked at her brother, his long limbs stretched over the muddy ground, head resting on the pack he carried during the day. "He's always been too nice a guy for his own good," she said softly, laying her hand on the green cloak over her knees.

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me," said Alex with a nod. "He always wants to help people out – that's probably why he's along, actually, Saturos' threats aside."

"Helping you unleash destruction on the world?"

"No, we're not unleashing destruction at all. Well – potentially. Or – actually, it's complicated and I'm too tired to explain." As if to demonstrate, he suddenly yawned. "You'll just have to trust me on that one."

"Trust you? I met you a day and a half ago," Jenna pointed out crossly.

Alex sighed. "I know. Well, I've trusted Felix with my life since about two weeks after I met him, so it may not take long. But then again it's been years since I met Saturos, and he's still… Shoot, what am I saying? I shouldn't have taken two watches." He yawned again. "What time is it? Why don't you wake your brother, we should get moving."

After they roused the others, the first thing to do was determine a route. "North," Saturos said almost instantly as he examined the map. "Due north. We'll go through Lunpa and then over the mountains."

"That's practically suicide," Alex replied firmly, shaking his head. "Even if that part of the range weren't completely impassible, we'd be lucky to get through Lunpa and still have the clothes on our backs. The place is swarming with filthy thieves." He poked the map at the marker of a town to the northeast. "We should go by way of Bilibin. It's a little roundabout and takes us through two tunnels, but it's safe – no one who takes that route has any problems along the way."

Saturos opened his mouth to protest, but Menardi spoke before he got the chance. "Listen to him, Saturos, he lives there."

"But he didn't leave it overland," Saturos snapped, harshly folding up the map.

"At least I know the route better than _you_ do," said Alex, annoyed.

"There's no time to wander around the long way. We're going north!"

"Why the hell are you picking a fight about this, Saturos?" Menardi groaned as her partner got to his feet. "He already said the north route is a dead end."

"It's called climbing! I'm sure you've heard of it."

Menardi clenched her teeth and seized him by the arm before he could storm off. "Now you're just picking a fight for the sake of picking a fight. The road's clearly marked on the map, he's right, and you're wrong. We're going through Bilibin, and if you want to be a stubborn jackass and go north instead, that's fine, but you'll be getting lost on your own."

Saturos fixed a silent, furious glare on her, and she a determined one on him; a moment later he jerked his arm from her grasp and began walking northward without a word. Alex stepped forward, but Menardi held up a hand and he stopped. "Best we give him some space," she said calmly.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, long before he would be out of sight, Saturos turned eastward. Menardi chuckled and started the rest of the group after him.

Thus began their monotonous journey to Bilibin. The road was straight and well-packed from centuries of use, and in better weather, it was an easy and pleasant road. But in rain like this – which, incidentally, showed no sign whatsoever of letting up for the next two days – it was just one long mud puddle with wagon ruts in it. Menardi caught up with Saturos and stayed more or less abreast of him in front, while the other three followed at a short distance from the Proxians and one another.

Not long after their path joined the road, Felix caught up to Alex. Alex acknowledged him with a brief glance, but didn't say anything. "Are you okay?" Felix asked. "You seem less… um… _energetic_ than usual."

Alex shrugged. "I give up. I'm not even going to _try_ to understand Saturos anymore."

"What's not to understand?" said Felix. "He's a—" He glanced at Saturos ahead of them, and stopped just in case.

"I just don't see why he made such a big deal of it," Alex muttered. "I know how to get to Imil and he doesn't. There's not any kind of problem with that, is there?"

Felix thought for a second, then nodded slightly. "You know what… maybe he thinks you're a threat."

"What?" said Alex, making a face. "What do you mean?"

"Well, your ideas are better than his, nine times of ten," Felix pointed out. "And you're a natural leader, too." Alex scoffed at that. "I'm serious. Saturos is probably thinking we'll mutiny if he doesn't 'keep us in line,' that's what I think."

"I'm not the mutinying type," said Alex, shaking his head.

"I didn't say you were," replied Felix, slowing to let Jenna catch up. "But…"

"I'll keep an eye out, anyway," said Alex. "Hadn't thought of that. And we all know how Saturos gets with people he doesn't like."

Neither of them said any more on the subject. What Alex assumed had not been what Felix was going to say, but in retrospect, he was kind of glad he hadn't said it.

_He's right, he isn't a mutineer,_ he thought. _But I could see him _becoming _one._

* * *

"Three and a half days over land, in ankle-deep mud," said Menardi as they finally reached the entrance of Bilibin Tunnel. "I'd say we're doing very well. If we're lucky, the rain might have stopped by the time we reach the other end." (It was possible; the deluge had lessened to a light shower over the last day or so, and the clouds had gone from black to medium grey.)

"Well, about bloody time," Saturos grunted, pulling himself effortlessly up the slippery rocks below the cave's mouth. The other three had a much more difficult time of it, but made it up in the end, and the group entered together.

Having bought some unlit torches in Vault, they now lit three of them and entrusted them to Alex, Menardi, and Jenna (the latter with the reasoning that if there was any trouble, the hostage wouldn't be much help in a fight anyway). "Be wary," Menardi cautioned. "Places like this are perfect for springing an ambush."

For the most part, the tunnel was a natural cave and fairly spacious, with plenty of suspicious shadows and overhangs along the main path. Fortunately, the path was clearly marked with periodic signs and white paint, so while it would be no difficult task to ambush travelers here, at least there wasn't much chance of them getting lost.

Where the others continued warily, Jenna was downright jittery. The not-so-distant echoes of dripping water, somewhere outside the limited reach of the torches, combined with the dancing shadows from the torches themselves, made her jump at almost regular intervals. No one noticed her anxiety until, accompanied by a shriek and a splash, her torch suddenly went out.

"Jenna!" Felix shouted and whirled to find her, afraid something awful had happened; however, as Alex and his torch drew up beside them, it became clear that she had only tripped and fallen into an ankle-deep stream. Alex chuckled and watched as she retrieved her torch and let Felix help her out of the water, but stopped abruptly as she ignited the torch herself before he could offer to relight it. "You're a _fire_ adept?" he asked in surprise.

Jenna and Felix looked at him as if he had just called the sky blue. "Yeah, I am. What about it?" Jenna challenged him.

Alex waved his free hand defensively. "Nothing, I just assumed you were both earth adepts, being brother and sister…"

"Well, sorry to disappoint," said Jenna facetiously. When they continued, Alex brought up the rear instead of her, so she wouldn't worry about being left behind.

For a long time they walked silently on the white-painted path, all eyes and ears peeled for trouble. The darkness deepened, closing in on their torches such that Saturos and Menardi were forced to send conjured flames ahead so they could see where they were going. The atmosphere was far from pleasant, even once they'd gotten used to the musty air typical of caves. It progressively worsened as they walked, until finally, Menardi stopped, wrinkled her nose, and said, "What is that _smell?"_

Saturos glanced at her – then behind her. "Look out!" he shouted.

Menardi jumped instinctively out of the way as a tremendous, lumbering form trampled out of the shadows with a low, throaty roar, slamming Saturos into the stone wall before he could draw his sword. In a flash, Menardi pulled her long scythe from her back and swung at the enormous creature, but the curved blade glanced off its skin. "What _is_ that thing!" Jenna screamed.

Felix drew his sword uncertainly, not sure whether or not the two Proxians had the situation under control. Alex didn't think so, and unleashed a stream of razor-sharp ice needles on their attacker, but quickly realized he was doing no damage. The creature turned its grey, chinless head dully toward him, but before it got a chance to attack, Menardi distracted it by forcefully jamming her torch into the back of its hand. The monster howled and swatted at the irritant, knocking both the torch and its wielder flat to the ground, and extinguishing the former; but in doing so, for a few scant seconds, it had released its captive's sword hand.

Saturos seized the opportunity and whipped his blade from its sheath. Given that he was still pinned against the wall with his feet a good six inches off the ground, however, there was little he could do with it, so he hacked ineffectually at the stony hide of the hand still holding him. The monster, confused and irritated, plucked him from the wall and made to throw him into the deep darkness surrounding them, but didn't get the chance; as Menardi righted herself, she hurled a spinning orb of fire into its face. The thing howled and dropped Saturos in favor of nursing its injured eyes. Unfazed, Saturos rolled into a crouch, and the blade of his sword started to give off a golden light as he tightened his grip on its hilt, and not half a second later, he thrust it with all his strength into the creature's wide belly.

The air burst from around him with a sound like a boulder falling onto gravel, knocking everyone off balance except himself, and extinguishing the remaining two torches to plunge them all into total darkness.

The monster moaned briefly, and there was the _thump_ of something heavy falling over. "Saturos?" Menardi called, and a second later a fireball flickered to life in one raised hand, providing just enough light to prove that Saturos was indeed the victor. He still stood at the feet of the giant corpse, with his bloodied sword lowered to his side.

Jenna quickly relit her torch, and Alex's when he silently proffered it, and the party warily converged on the beast's remains. They were met with a gruesome sight; the creature's torso had apparently been violently collapsed in upon itself. Jenna gagged and closed her eyes, and Felix grimaced in similar disgust. Alex, not quite as bothered by it, stepped closer at the same time as Menardi and held his torch over the body. "What was that?" he asked.

"A troll," said Saturos matter-of-factly. "Guess it was hungry."

"But trolls have been extinct for centuries," Alex protested.

"No, it's just been centuries since anybody's seen one and survived," Menardi corrected him. "But since they're obviously not terribly hard to survive, it's more likely they've just been in hibernation for the last few hundred years."

Alex furrowed his brow, trying to wrap his mind around the idea. "How is that possible?"

"Beats me," said Menardi, shrugging. "Though it might have something to do with the seal…"

"We haven't broken the seal yet," said Saturos.

"No, the _other_ seal. But even then it doesn't make much sense." She bit her thumbnail in thought.

"What other seal?" asked Felix.

Saturos and Menardi looked at him in unison, as if just noticing he was there. "The first one," said Saturos. "The one we broke by removing the Stars. I'm sure you remember the lightshow."

"That was a seal? You never said anything about—"

"We'd better keep moving," Menardi interrupted, replacing her scythe across her back. "We should reach Bilibin by nightfall, barring any further … encounters. Where there's one troll, there's more, and they won't be content to eat one another forever."

She recovered her torch and lit it, then rejoined the trail and started off. Saturos followed her after wiping and sheathing his sword, and Alex hurried to catch him. Felix nudged his sister, who was still staring at the troll's body with a hand over her mouth. "Come on, it's too dangerous to stay," he said.

Jenna nodded a second later and followed him and the receding lights of the other torches at a trot. "That—is—disgusting," she choked out once the stench of death had died down a little.

Felix didn't answer. _It's not going to be the last time,_ he thought.

Ahead of them, Alex walked alongside Saturos, holding the torch high to try and extend its radius, which didn't work. "Saturos, I'm curious," he said tentatively, after a while. "Just what kind of a sword is that?"

"This?" said Saturos, resting his hand on the hilt. "Its name is the Titan Blade. I'm willing to bet it's older than even the lighthouses."

Alex's eyebrows rose. "Really! It's in great shape for a thousand-year-old sword."

Saturos nodded. "Well, alchemical weapons _are _known for lasting a very long time."

"What do you mean?"

He smirked. "Alex, this sword is a relic of the Golden Age. Back then, there were alchemists all over the world, forging weapons like this. You could do anything with weapons back then—there were swords that could heal, axes that could think, staves that always killed with a single blow. Prox's forges far outstripped all the others, of course." The tinge of pride in his voice was unmistakable. "Our forges… we were gods of war…" Suddenly the pride turned to disgust. "It's too bad all anyone does anymore is sit around and wait to fall off the edge of the world."

"Well, that's simply not true," Alex interjected, but Saturos cut him off.

"You lived there for three years, Alex! You know what's left of my people. They won't say it, but most of them believe we're destined to fail. You can see it in their eyes." He bristled at the very thought of it.

"So think of the looks on their faces when you prove them dead wrong," Alex said quickly, trying to calm him down. "They'll welcome us back as heroes."

"Or as fools." Saturos shook his head. "Funny that _they're_ the people I'm trying so hard to save." He glanced over his shoulder. "Felix and the girl are falling behind again—go tell them to keep up, will you?"

And that was the end of the conversation.

* * *

The rain had indeed stopped by the time they emerged from the tunnel, leaving the town of Bilibin easily visible. It was nearer to the exit than anyone had thought, and they had reached the stockade with time to spare before the sun set… but surprisingly, despite the early hour, the gate was already shut.

Saturos stepped forward and knocked insistently on the gate. A few seconds later a small window in it slid open, revealing the face of a man in a leather helmet. "What do you want?"

"To come in, of course," said Saturos impatiently.

"Which road did you come by?"

Jenna, looking about at the scenery, suddenly noticed movement on the road where it continued to the east. Squinting, she recognized it as a man, running toward them at a breakneck pace. "Um…"

"We came from Vault through the tunnel," Saturos replied. "Will you open the gate?"

"Yes, just a moment." The small window closed, and a few seconds later the wooden gate creaked open and the guard motioned that they enter. "There's a quarantine of late, y'see—no strangers may enter Bilibin from the east."

"What about that guy?" said Jenna, pointing at the running man, who had almost caught up with them and was now yelling something indistinguishable at the top of his lungs.

The guard looked past her. "Oh, sh—get inside. Quickly!"

A bit confused, the party hurried through the gate, and only as it was closing behind them did the man's shouts become intelligible. "Wait, don't! Please, you have to help us!"

The guard barred the gate just as the pounding on it began, and yelled back without opening the little window. "Get back! There's a quarantine on the east road!"

"No, please! There's a terrible curse! I barely escaped it! Hurry, before—"

Everyone but Saturos winced as the man's voice suddenly twisted into a scream, which faded as another, more grotesque sound grew – that of splintering wood. But within a few seconds, the splintering noise had died as well. The guard waited a moment, then opened the window to look out. "What happened?" said Alex, concerned.

The guard paused, then closed the window and faced them. "It's all right, travelers, just go about your business. You must be tired after walking all the way from Vault."

"But—" Alex tried, but the guard interrupted more forcefully.

"Sirs, there is _nothing to see here._ Please move _along!"_

* * *

The inn was close by, so there wasn't far to move along. Jenna, though still unnerved by the strange sounds at the gate even hours later, couldn't help but be glad to finally get out of the muck and to wash the filth out of her dress and skin and sleep in a real bed; but she did her best not to show it. For some reason she got the feeling that any lapse in her bitter silence might somehow agitate Menardi, with whom she had to share a room; the men slept in the room next door. But if Menardi was agitated even in the least, Jenna couldn't tell by her behavior. The two women didn't spare each other more than a handful of words all night, except when Menardi, while mending a small tear in her dress where it had caught on a bramble, asked Jenna casually if she could sew. Jenna replied that she could, and that was all the more either one said.

The party left very early the next morning, such that Jenna wondered facetiously if the Proxians had better vision than the rest of them and just didn't _realize_ how dark it was. As they trudged through the deep mud of the north road, which frequently forced them into the grass on either side of it lest they lose their boots, she glanced at her brother or his friend Alex every so often. Felix's expression wavered only between "stoic" and "annoyed," and Alex's between "content" and "positively chipper."

_How was the guy so damn _happy _all the time?_

On the afternoon of their third day out of Bilibin, the unmistakable wide mouth of the northern tunnel came into view. It looked more like a tall, simple gate than a cave, actually, and the road led right up to it rather than making them climb.

As they got closer, Alex trotted ahead of the group and stood just outside the entrance, waiting for them to catch up. "Here, watch this," he exclaimed once they could hear him again; he moved aside to reveal a glassy black circle behind him, about the size of his palm.

"Watch what?" said Saturos.

Alex held up one finger, then turned and lay his hand on the circle. Immediately four lines of bright light issued out from it and spread down the length of the tunnel, providing more than enough illumination to walk by. Jenna gasped; Saturos raised an eyebrow. "Interesting…"

"Neat, isn't it? Just a little bit of Psynergy and we don't have to burn through our torches." Alex smiled broadly and motioned inward. "Shall we?"

Saturos held back, waiting for Alex, while the others entered. "I thought you said you hadn't been this way before," he said a little dangerously once only Alex could hear him well.

"I never said that," said Alex. "I've been to Bilibin a few times. Don't act so surprised."

For a second Saturos just stared icily at him, then he proceeded down the path, Alex not far behind.

The lines of light stayed unwaveringly bright as they followed the corridor under the mountain, and a corridor it was; the walls and floor were perfectly straight and almost perfectly smooth, with precision too consistent to be the work of any normal tools. Felix ran his hand along one of the walls, sometimes letting it guide him while he closed his eyes. _I wonder how long this has been here,_ he thought. He had no doubt it had been hewn out of the rock by earth adepts, but the effort that would take for a tunnel this long must have been phenomenal…

It was dark outside by the time they reached the other end, so they camped just inside the exit. The first thing Jenna noticed when her brother woke her the next morning was how cold it was; she must have been too tired to realize it when she fell asleep. The thin layer of frost on the grass crunched under their feet as they walked, and Jenna pulled her violet cloak tight around her shoulders to keep out the chill. She was surprised that no one else seemed bothered by it. All the more Felix did was adjust his cloak when it finally started snowing a few hours later, and the other three didn't even _notice_ the drop in temperature as far as she could tell.

As it began to darken again – already? The hours of one foot in front of the other must have been taking their toll – they came upon two small wooden buildings just off the side of the road, almost identical to a pair they had encountered shortly after lunch but paid no mind to. "Where are we going to camp?" Felix asked generally as Alex approached one of the houses. The snow was already four inches deep, and to spend the night in it…

Alex knocked loudly on the door, then, when no response came back, opened it. "In here," he said, pointing indoors.

His companions entered and surveyed the cabin's one room; it boasted two bunk beds and a simple fireplace, and while a bit drafty, it was at least dry. "They're sort of halfway houses," Alex explained, letting the others get settled in. "The idea is, most people who come this way are already ill, so why compound it with exposure?"

Saturos wore an oddly triumphant-looking smirk as he signed his name in the guestbook, but only Jenna noticed it, and she didn't really want to know what he was feeling so smug about.

Over the following day, the only things that changed about their travel were the depth of the snow, and at some point, the gradual appearance of a blue spire on the horizon. Jenna leaned toward her brother a little as soon as she was sure it was really there. "What is that?" she whispered.

Felix paused, as if reluctant to tell her. "The Mercury Lighthouse," he finally said.

Mercury Lighthouse. _So that's really where we're going?_ she thought. They were trudging through a foot of snow for days and days to reach a blue lighthouse which she could only assume they were going to somehow set on fire with a glowing rock… it all seemed so unreal.

Alex predicted at lunchtime that they wouldn't make it to town before dark, and he was right. They spent what seemed like a very long night in another small cabin, and left shortly before dawn the next morning. By then the snow had stopped falling, but it was still overcast enough that Jenna found herself beginning to despair of ever seeing the sun again. The tower continued to grow as they approached the town, and only a few hours into the day, they crested a hill lined with evergreens and suddenly came within sight of the white-capped thatch roofs of Imil.

Alex stopped and stared down at the familiar village, barely noticing when his companions passed him by. Smoke rose from every chimney, and from here he could make out the shapes of people going about their daily errands, and a few children at play in the new-fallen snow. He was sure he knew all of them, but their distance maintained their anonymity, just as it maintained his. It abruptly occurred to him that he didn't _want_ to be recognized yet; he didn't remember telling anyone where he was going or why, three years ago, and they would ask, and…

"Alex!"

He glanced down to the source of Felix's voice. "What's wrong?" his friend asked.

Alex looked back at the town, then shook his head. "It's nothing. I was just thinking." As he started down the hill, though, he pulled back his long turquoise hair and stuffed it into his collar, then raised his hood over it.

Felix's eyes lit with understanding just as the other man caught up. "Oh, right. I keep forgetting."

"Forgetting what?" said Jenna.

"I … used to live there," Alex explained, a hint of dread seeping into his voice. "We'll be delayed if I'm recognized, that's all."

"Do you have family there?" Jenna asked.

For a minute Alex just walked alongside them in silence; then, just as she decided he wasn't going to answer, he did. "You might say that."

Before long, they were down among the white houses. The streets were partly shoveled already, though it was still fairly early in the morning, and the shovel boys stopped their work for a moment to watch the strangers pass by. They weren't the only ones, though—_everyone_ stopped whatever they were doing to stare. Imil saw many visitors, but never anything like this. One man who was sky blue from head to toe, a blonde woman who might have just looked very badly sunburned if not for her scales, two normal-looking folks and someone hiding under a thick hood; it was such a random assortment that no one who saw could make heads or tails of it.

It wasn't as if they hadn't received odd looks in Bilibin, too, but there Alex had had less trouble ignoring them. Here, every pair of curious eyes had a _name,_ and even disguised as he was, every time he made fleeting eye contact with someone he was struck with the fear that maybe he had already betrayed his identity. His mind had already jumped far ahead of himself. _Where were you all these years, Alex? Why did you leave us? What about your patients? What about poor Mia?_

"Where are we going?" Felix asked generally.

Menardi turned and pointed ahead, where the sign over the inn door swung back and forth in the cold breeze. "There. We may as well get a room before we head back out, so it's still there when we get back." Her eyes moved from Felix to his sister. "And I'm sure you're all eager to get out of the cold for a few minutes."

Jenna swallowed nervously.

Saturos advanced briskly to the service counter, though there was no one behind it. He picked up and rang the small bell resting on the edge. "Hello?" he called impatiently.

The tone of the bell finally pulled Alex from his self-conscious worry, even as he vaguely noticed the voice of the innkeeper's wife shouting that she'd be with them in a moment. He shook his head to clear it and quickly caught up. "Saturos, wait, we don't h… can we speak a moment?"

Saturos glared, but allowed Alex to take him aside, with Menardi. "What is it?"

"We don't need to check in so soon," Alex whispered. "The inn's almost never crowded, so there's sure to be space when we get back from _There."_

"How far is it?" Menardi asked.

"Only about three hours east. If we just leave now, we'll be back with time to spare before sundown."

"Sounds good," said Menardi. "Let's go."

"Wish you'd have said that before we waltzed into town," Saturos grunted.

"Felix! Jenna! Come on," Menardi called across the main room. Jenna glared viciously – she had literally _just_ sat down by the crackling fireplace – but Felix helped her lightly to her feet, with or without her consent, and she grudgingly dragged her feet after him as they walked toward the door.

Alex reached it first and was just about to open it when it suddenly opened of its own accord and knocked him stumbling back into the room. He yelped in surprise.

"Oh my gosh! I'm sorry!" the blue-headed girl exclaimed, just as surprised as he was. Felix realized with one look that this had to be his friend's sister; Alex realized it without even looking, and immediately covered his (uninjured) face with one hand. "Ow! Ow!"

"I'm sorry! I didn't see you there," said Mia, coming closer. "Are you all right?"

"No, no, I'm fine," Alex insisted anxiously, backing away. "Sorry I got in your way, miss, go ahead..."

"Are you sure?" Mia prodded.

"Yes, I'm fine!" said Alex, even less firmly than before. It began to dawn on him that, knowing his sister's stubbornness, he couldn't convince her he wasn't bleeding out the nose except by showing her, but if he did _that…_

Saturos recognized the dilemma and stepped forward, more or less between Alex and his sister. "Excuse me, miss," he interjected commandingly.

Mia jumped, incredulous at the fact that she'd failed to notice someone looking like _that_ when she came in. "Yes?" she asked hesitantly.

"We're here to see the mayor," Saturos lied. "Where can we find him?"

"What do you want to see _him_ f—"she began, but the Proxian's piercing red glare stopped her cold. She swallowed and started again. "His house is four buildings north," she answered with a very forced calmness, and pointed vaguely behind her without letting her eyes leave him even momentarily.

"Thank you," said Saturos tersely, and motioned his companions quickly out the door. The moment they were out of sight, Mia let out the reflexive shudder she'd withheld.

"What do you think they're here for?" said the innkeeper's wife, who had come in sometime during the commotion.

Mia's brow furrowed. "I don't know, but I doubt they're here on vacation."

* * *

_Hiffaffiburi da na, Hojo!_

_Um… I mean, thanks for keeping reading and reviewing, even when I take forever to update!  
It's wonderful knowing people continue to like this deranged little project of mine._


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